The Stockholm Convention: Who stands to gain?

Geneva was recently inundated with bureaucrats, environmental activists and diplomats (as if there weren't enough there already) attending the 6th Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meeting for the Stockholm Convention. While the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) delegates were enjoying the warm June weather and fine scenery that Geneva has to offer, it became increasingly clear who will actually benefit from yet another UN convention - certainly no developing country.

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) aims to eliminate a number of persistent chemicals via a legally binding international agreement. Currently there are 12 on the list, the so-called "dirty dozen", and more will be added to that list.

The great success of the global Green movement is in getting all "right thinking people" to buy into their ideas and philosophy. It would be hard to find anyone that would question the need to ban dangerous chemicals. And yet few people question the scientific legitimacy of the bans, and even fewer consider the unintended consequences on the health and economic wellbeing of those in the developing world.

Behind the demands to ban POPs is the claim that they disrupt the endocrine system and impact on the reproductive capacity of mammals. John Peterson Myers, author of Our Stolen Future, calls for endocrine-disrupting materials to be removed from consumer products and for their environmental release to be phased out completely. Writing in the UNEP publication, Our Planet, he goes on to state that persistent bioaccumulative compounds should be eliminated from use even if toxicological risk is not demonstrated.

The problem is that there will be enormous costs in following Peterson Myers down his chosen Green path. Professor Stephen Safe from the National Institute of Health Sciences at Texas A&M University points out that while humans ingest trace elements of synthetic chemicals that could impact on the human endocrine system, these quantities are dwarfed by the naturally occurring endocrine-active compounds. It is difficult to imagine any environmentalist calling for the banning of any naturally occurring compounds.

Another problem is that banning chemicals or technologies, regardless of the risks they impose, does not take into account the risk of NOT having the technology. People in developing countries are subjected to drinking dirty water and poor sanitation, and they must cope with farming techniques that haven't changed since medieval times. Man-made chemicals and new technologies can mean the difference between life and death for these people, and Peterson Myers callously ignores this fact.

But even if the evidence in favour of banning the POPs was as compelling as the Green movement claims, is a UN convention the best way to deal with the supposed problem? During the years that Western countries used the POPs chemicals, they didn't only become richer, they also became healthier.

In the developed regions, life expectancy at birth rose from 66.5 years in the early 1950s to over 74 years in the early 1990s. The increase in life expectancy at birth in the developing regions is more impressive. Over the same period in the least developed regions, it increased from 35.5 years to just under 50 years. Writing again in Our Planet, Clifton Curtis from the World Wildlife Fund laments the fact that approximately 80 000 chemicals have been introduced into the environment in the last 50 years and claims that they are a threat to human health. Yet doesn't the fact that there are now vastly more human beings living longer, healthier lives than 50 years ago undermine his theory?

The UNEP seems to ignore the good news that we are now better off and healthier, not in spite of, but largely because of the benefits of modern technology and synthetic chemicals. Klaus Tˆpfer, the Executive Director of UNEP, provides some insights into why the UNEP is pressing ahead with the Stockholm Convention.

In his opening address to the UNEP delegates, Tˆpfer claims that the Convention is one of the "greatest environmental accomplishments of the past decade" and that it is "widely praised by governments and business and environmental interests alike". Tˆpfer demonstrates two things; one is his extraordinary ability to blow his own trumpet, the other is to show who really stands to gain.

It is most unlikely that businesses, particularly small businesses, in the developing world will welcome the Convention. They will face increased production costs and do not have the power to lobby for relaxation of the new laws. Rather it is industry in the developed North which stands to gain in producing the alternative chemicals and by enjoying a competitive advantage by already complying with the legislation. Green campaigners will be able to claim important victories and raise even more funds as a result of the Convention. Governments and particularly their bureaucrats will have increased budgets and power and also stand to gain. So no wonder they support Tˆpfer and the UNEP.

Getting the Convention this far didn't come cheaply, and it is already indebted by well over $2 million. Of course, Tˆpfer took the opportunity to demand greater funding for UNEP from the member countries, and no doubt he will get it.

So businesses in the North, governments, environmentalists and Geneva's own class of ¸ber-bureaucrats all stand to benefit. Don't forget, however, that the convention opens up all sorts of opportunities for consultants all around the world. As governments struggle to implement the convention, UNEP Chemicals is calling for consultants to apply for positions to assist countries with their implementation plans.

What of the environmental benefits? Strangely enough, it appears that the environment is improving despite the desperate attempts by the UN to control our economic activities. As has been shown so ably by the Danish statistician Bj¯rn Lomborg in his book The Skeptical Environmentalist, almost all environmental indicators are improving and mostly because we are wealthier, can afford cleaner technologies and have more time and money to devote to environmental luxuries. As for the potential impacts of synthetic chemicals on human health in the developed world; far more children die from a lack of sanitation before they get a chance to be affected by endocrine disruptors anyway.

If we are really concerned with ensuring a cleaner environment and with healthier populations, we should concentrate on ensuring that the developing world can become wealthy. This can be achieved with open markets and liberalised trade, protection of private property and the rule of law.

Creating a "model for international environmental governance" as Tˆpfer calls for will not make people wealthy, will not ensure that children live beyond the age of 5 in the developed world, and will bring precious little in environmental benefits.

While I was sitting through a long and involved debate during the Geneva meeting, I couldn't help over hearing two delegates from a wealthy developed country (that shall remain nameless) proposing a shopping expedition. The Stockholm Convention provides shopping sprees for bureaucrats while it costs the world's poorest dearly in slower growth, less wealth and a less healthy environment.

It is time that UNEP, in its efforts to become the global governor of the environment, move its meeting to those areas that are most negatively affected. The shopping opportunities in Maputo or Lusaka are not what they are in Geneva, but at least the delegates will get a better first hand understanding of the damage they are causing.

Richard Tren is a director of Africa Fighting Malaria, a health NGO based in South Africa

This article may be republished if acknowledgement is given.