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US seizes opening for
ozone-depleting substance
By Marty Logan
Montreal, Canada, Mar. 27 (IPS) -- The hole in the ozone layer
risks looming larger after the world community agreed Mar. 26 to permit
the United States and 10 other northern countries to continue using
a pesticide that was supposed to be off-limits by 2005.
The meeting was called after nations failed to agree last year on what
exemptions should be granted to the northern nations for using the pesticide,
methyl bromide, in instances where it was deemed critically important.
Washington had wanted approval to produce and use methyl bromide until
2007, while the European Union (EU) argued the exemptions should be
granted for just one year. According to EU officials, technically and
economically feasible alternatives to methyl bromide could come on-
stream after 12 months.
Delegates decided Mar. 26, after the meeting’s translators had
retired for the night, to grant the northern states a one-year exemption,
but not to commit to amounts for the following years. In fact, they
tightened the requirements for future exemptions.
The northern countries will now be allowed to use an amount equal to
more than 50 percent of all the methyl bromide consumed by 34 developed
nations in 2001, and nearly three-quarters of that used by developing
nations the same year. The push for exemption was led by the United
States, whose request accounted for two-thirds of the total.
Methyl bromide is classed as an ozone-depleting substance because it
damages the stratospheric layer that protects people, plants and animals
from solar radiation, which can produce skin cancer and eye cataracts.
“It would be difficult not to perceive this as a slowdown in [reaching]
the Protocol target,” an official from Argentina said after the
late-night meeting. They added that there had probably been “too
much optimism” about the speed at which methyl bromide could be
phased out, when countries agreed in 1997 to allow exceptions to the
ban for “critical uses.” This view was echoed by others.
The Argentine delegation pushed hard during the three-day gathering
to grant some leeway to developing countries that are ahead of schedule
in reducing their use of methyl bromide, which farmers use to kill pests
on strawberries, tomatoes, cut flowers and many other crops. The pesticide
is also used in meat and vegetable processing.
The debates took place during the first extraordinary meeting of countries
that signed on to the 1987 Montreal Protocol. The Protocol added teeth
to the 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer,
widely viewed as the world’s most successful environmental treaty.
It covers some 100 chemicals, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
According to the Protocol, developing nations (because they contributed
much less to the problem of ozone depletion) had to freeze their use
of methyl bromide in 2002, and then reduce it by 20 percent by 2005
and 100 percent by 2015. Developed countries previously agreed to cut
methyl bromide by 25 percent by 1999 (compared to 1991 levels), 50 percent
by 2001, 70 percent by 2003 and 100 percent by Jan. 1 2005.
“The expectations [for the development of alternatives to methyl
bromide] perhaps were a little bit high,” said Canadian official
Pierre Pinault. “So now that [a] push is coming to shove on the
actual phase-out...the level of difficulty is becoming apparent.”
But Pinault remains optimistic. “Most of the production and consumption
of ozone-depleting substances has been phased out in the last 20 or
so years: we’ve got about an 85 percent phase out. In Canada I
think we’re 97.5 percent ... now it’s getting harder and harder
to get that last little bit of reduction.”
A US official said she was satisfied with the meeting’s outcome.
“We got a technically-justified number for the critical-use exemption,
and we actually did something that was important today, in that we as
a group of parties decided that we would more aggressively control production
of new methyl bromide,” said Claudia McMurray, deputy assistant
secretary for the environment.
The Mar. 26 decision directs the northern countries to provide some
of the pesticide they will use next year from existing stockpiles, rather
than producing more of the substance.
David Doniger, an environmentalist from the Natural Resources Defence
Council, said it was important that Washington had revealed the size
of its methyl bromide stockpile.
But he said granting the US exemption means, “the phase-out stops,
it doesn’t continue toward zero, which was anticipated. That’s
unacceptable, especially when there was such a large stockpile.”
Doniger said the US request had not taken into account the development
of alternatives to methyl bromide, such as a new product that can be
used in place of methyl bromide to fumigate buildings. This product
has apparently been registered in 27 of the country’s 50 states.
“You probe all these arguments and it comes down to cost,”
he argued. “And cost comes down sometimes to very, very small differences
in cost between one chemical and another — you know, between this
one and a chemical that doesn’t hurt the ozone layer.”
Others said delegates should have kept the well-being of future generations
in mind.
“Some countries, especially mine, have high levels of UV [ultraviolet
radiation] and are only too aware of the effects on health, particularly
on children,” Alex Suarez Irusta of Bolivia told the meeting.
“This (meeting) should not be an opportunity for changing the trend
of our work and for changing the [rules for the] use of substances that
we had originally agreed to phase out.”
The ozone layer is expected to return to health in about 50 years —
if the phase-out schedules are fully respected.
But, McMurray insisted in an interview: “What we really want to
do is bring our numbers down. We want to get through this really difficult
stage of the protocol for us, and find the alternatives and get farmers
to use them.”
Led by Argentina, many developing nations here argued that granting
long-term exemptions to countries that were supposed to stop using methyl
bromide next year would provoke opposition from their farmers, who would
insist on not being hampered by limits that others did not respect.
Others, such as Uganda, said they did not have the means to stop using
the pesticide anyway. “We are saying that these alternatives that
we are talking about are not in some cases available,” said a Ugandan
official.
Many developing countries also objected to a call for them to set out
more precisely how they would phase out their use of methyl bromide
before the next meeting of a multilateral fund, which to date has provided
$1.4 billion dollars in technical and financial assistance to those
nations.
Free trade agreement threatens Costa
Rican environmental protections
By Mark Engler and Nadia Martinez
Mar. 26— When most people think of Costa Rica, they don’t
imagine oil rigs stationed off the pristine beaches. Nor do they envision
pit mines cutting into the cloud-forested mountains. But, despite the
country’s noteworthy conservation efforts, its scenic vistas and
extraordinary biodiversity face ongoing threats from extractive industries
— and from international trade deals.
Nearly two years ago, Costa Rican nationals and admirers thought they’d
been given reason to rest easy. In May 2002, responding to a large-scale
mobilization of the country’s environmentalists, President Abel Pacheco
announced a moratorium on oil exploration and open-pit mining in Costa
Rica. Legislators are currently working to give congressional backing
to the executive order and repeal laws that expose the country to extractive
industries.
At least one multinational interest isn’t happy about the developments,
however, and its model of corporate discontent may soon end the prospects
of an activist siesta.
Harken Energy, a Texas-based oil company with close ties to US President
George W. Bush, had previously obtained rights to search for crude oil
in Costa Rica. Before failing an environmental impact review in February
2002, it had planned to drill offshore. Now Harken is demanding that the
Costa Rican government pay upwards of $12 million in reparations for its
aborted exploits.
On Mar. 11, Costa Rica announced that it would not accept a proposed out-of-court
resolution to the dispute, delivering another blow to the bitter oil interest.
But that’s not the last word on the subject. Even as the company
contemplates sending the case back into international courts, the Bush
administration is brokering a treaty that threatens to make the Harken
suit into something more than an obscure legal grudge match. That treaty
is the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
With the US and five Central American countries working to ratify CAFTA,
it’s not just local environmentalists and Texas oil barons closely
watching ongoing developments in the Harken dispute. International observers
say the case is shaping up as the latest cautionary tale of how “free
trade” agreements give corporations the power to trump local environmental
laws.
Let us harken back
In 1994, the Costa Rican legislative assembly passed a hydrocarbons
law as part of a series of measures designed to comply with a Structural
Adjustment Program sponsored by the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund. The law opened the way for foreign corporations to win
concessions on oil exploration. Subsequently, a little-known Louisiana-based
company named MKJ Xploration successfully bid to prospect in several
blocks on the nation’s Caribbean coast. The company later sold
its Costa Rican interests to Harken Energy.
Area residents, fishers, indigenous groups, and environmentalists learned
of the deal by reading about it in the newspapers. They quickly realized
that lack of local consultation was only the first of the plan’s
many problems. Offshore drilling, they argued, would damage coral reefs
and mangrove swamps and threaten endangered sea life. They waged a prolonged
battle against the deal, and a national board came to take their side.
It ruled that Harken’s plan was not permissible under the country’s
environmental impact laws. Shortly thereafter, in denying Harken’s
appeal, the board cited more than 50 reasons why the company’s
impact statement did not make the grade.
Harken was furious. Arguing that it had already invested more than $12
million in the deal, it turned to international investment treaties
to sue Costa Rica — for $57 billion.
That’s no misprint. Harken wanted $57 billion, a figure it said
represented the total projected profits of the scuttled deal. Costa
Rica’s annual GDP is around $17 billion, and the government’s
entire annual budget around $5 billion. In late September 2003, soon
after the World Bank’s International Center for the Settlement
of Investment Disputes notified the Costa Rican government of Harken’s
claim against it, Pacheco announced that his country would not submit
to international arbitration. He refused to acknowledge any decision
made by the bank’s body, insisting instead that Costa Rica’s
national court system was the legitimate venue for the dispute. A few
days later, Harken withdrew its claim and pursued plans to reach an
out-of-court agreement.
In January of this year, former US Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) traveled
to San Jose to negotiate on behalf of Harken. At the time, the Costa
Rican government appeared grateful to be eliminating the specter of
a costly international lawsuit. Environmental groups, however, greeted
Torricelli with protests outside the Environment Ministry. They argued
that the negotiations were a form of “oil extortion” —
that Harken was punishing the country for enforcing its environmental
laws.
Whether the protests worked or, more likely the case, Costa Rica and
Harken were unable to agree on a settlement amount, it now appears that
the talks have failed. On Mar. 11, the government announced its position
that Harken did not have legal grounds to demand compensation and that
Costa Rica is not obliged to pay anything. The dispute, freshly reignited,
is on course to return to international arbitration in the near future.
Kill the fattened CAFTA?
As the Harken case has moved forward, so has CAFTA. In December, the
US finished negotiations with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and
Nicaragua on the regional free trade agreement. Costa Rica, which had
held back over concerns about privatizing public industries, was brought
into the accord in January. Now, each country must ratify the treaty
if it is to become law.
For opponents of CAFTA, the Harken case is a paradigmatic example of
how corporations use international agreements to bully countries into
dropping environmental protections. CAFTA’s investor protections,
which are similar to NAFTA’s notorious Chapter 11, allow companies
to bring complaints directly to international tribunals. Under the new
agreement, Costa Rica would not be able to rebuff efforts to bypass
its national courts. Instead, it would have to allow deliberations about
Harken’s astronomical $57 billion “compensation claim”
to move forward on the international level.
Regardless of whether such corporate claims are upheld, the threat of
a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit is enough to persuade many developing
countries to back down on enforcing their environmental laws. The example
of NAFTA shows that even powerful countries are susceptible to what
activists dub environmental “blackmail.” In one famous 1998
case, the Ethyl Corporation sued Canada over its public health ban on
MMT, a fuel additive. Canada chose to overturn its environmental provision
and pay $13 million to Ethyl rather than risk $251 million in damages.
With such cases on record, Australia refused to include a provision
in its trade agreement with the US that would let investors bypass national
courts and take disputes to international bodies. But that’s something
poorer nations, who feel they cannot afford to risk losing access to
US markets, do not have the power to do.
US Trade Rep. Robert Zoellick claims that CAFTA contains strong protections
for the environment. Likewise, Costa Rica’s minister of energy
and environment, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, argues that CAFTA “presents
an opportunity for [Costa Rica] to seriously apply its environmental
legislation.”
It is true that the agreement includes provisions for citizens to submit
charges regarding violations of environmental laws. However, while there
are clear consequences for violating the agreement’s investor provisions,
there is no clear enforcement mechanism to ensure action on public complaints.
Moreover, CAFTA will affect legislative efforts to solidify Pacheco’s
extractive industries ban. Environmental groups such as the Costa Rican
Federation for Environmental Conservation have warned that CAFTA could
complicate if not thwart efforts by the assembly in San Jose to reverse
the 1994 hydrocarbons law.
“Costa Rica of course can repeal its hydrocarbons law. But under
the final CAFTA text, the oil companies would be empowered to sue for
lost profits,” says Lori Wallach, director of Global Trade Watch
at Public Citizen. “Plus, governments could claim that a repeal
would infringe on their rights to market access in the service sector.”
It remains to be seen if the Costa Rican legislature will continue with
existing plans to reverse the law. But it is clear that CAFTA bodes
ill for environmental protection in the participating countries. Should
a subsequent administration make the decision to go oil-rig-free two
or three years from now, it may be nearly impossible to implement.
Of course, that’s only if CAFTA gains ratification. In the US,
the deal faces a bruising battle in Congress if the Bush administration
tries to push it through in an election year.
Back in Costa Rica, legislators committed to extending the country’s
conservationist tradition may yet prove hesitant to subject their environmental
laws to the threat of corporate attack — a threat that the ongoing
dispute with Harken has made all too vivid.
Source: Grist Magazine
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