The soaring gold price may also be
increasing mercury pollution locally and world-wide. The poisonous heavy
metal is used to extract gold from ore in many artisanal mining operations
which involve millions of workers and their families.
Mr Steiner, also a UN Under-Secretary
General, said scientists have been warning about the dangers to human
health, wildlife and the wider environment for well over a century.
"And it is true that many countries have,
in recent decades, taken steps to reduce mercury uses and releases and to
protect their citizens from exposure to this toxic heavy metal," he added.
"However the fact remains that a
comprehensive and decisive response to the global challenge of mercury is
not in place and this needs to be urgently addressed," said Mr Steiner.
Mercury is linked with a wide range of
health effects including irreversible damage to the human nervous system
including the brain and scientists have concluded there is no safe limit
when it comes to mercury exposure.
Every person alive today-some 6.5 billion
people- is thought to have at least trace levels of the heavy metal in
their tissues.
Today governments and experts are meeting
in Bangkok under the auspices of the UNEP's Chemicals Branch to discuss
how best to reduce environmental sources of mercury with a range of
options on the table from voluntary measures and initiatives up to legally
binding treaties.
Their report will be presented to
environment ministers meeting in February in Monaco attending UNEP's
Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum.
UNEP is urging governments, working with
industry and civil society, to begin setting "clear and ambitious targets"
to get global mercury levels down and to set the stage for mercury-free
products and processes world-wide.
Such targets might include:
- an agreement to phase-out mercury from
products and processes, such as in the manufacture of medical equipment
and in chlorine factories, with an aim of realizing mercury-free products
by 2020.
- Reductions in emissions from coal-fired
power stations with the additional benefits of reduced greenhouse gases
and improved local air quality.
- Support for initiatives like those of the
UN Industrial and Development Organization which has a goal to cut by 50
per cent the use of mercury in artisanal mining by 2017 en route to a
total phase-out
"The global public has been watching and
waiting for action-it is now time to start delivering it. This meeting,
aimed at narrowing the options and resolving outstanding concerns, comes
against a background of worries over rising levels of mercury emissions
and releases in several key areas" said Mr Steiner.
UNEP's flagship report-the Global
Environment Outlook-4-launched last month states that that coal burning
and waste incineration account for about 70 per cent of the total
quantified emissions of mercury.
"As combustion of fossil fuels is
increasing, mercury emissions can be expected to increase, in the absence
of control technologies or prevention," says the GEO-4, the peer reviewed
work of well over 1,000 scientists and experts.
Scientists are also testing suggestions
that climate change may be triggering releases of new and re-activation of
old deposits of mercury as a result of rising lake temperatures; erosion
and the accelerated melting of permafrost, ice sheets and icebergs at the
poles.
From here the mercury-in form known as
methymercury- can enter the global food chain via marine mammals such as
whales and seals and internationally caught and traded fish such as
swordfish, shark, marlin, mackerel, walleye, sea bass and tuna.
The Bangkok "Open-Ended Working Group"
meeting-which will also be attended by industry and civil society groups-
is expected to be followed up by a second one in late 2008.
Mr Steiner added:"I sincerely hope that at
this second meeting, the international community can finally bring closure
to the debate about the way forward and open a new chapter of clear,
decisive, action on mercury-action that leads to the setting of clear and
ambitious targets in order to deliver measurable reductions to protect
human health and the wider environment".
"There is no real reason to wait on many of
the mercury fronts. Viable alternatives exist for virtually all products
containing mercury and industrial processes using mercury," he added.
Read the
Background Information on agreement on Mercury Pollution
