After an emergency meeting this week, The Bahamas no longer faces international trade sanctions, after proving its compliance with an international agreement on use of some chemicals believed to damage the earth’s ozone layer.
Keod Smith, ambassador for the environment, said Wednesday this country has been removed from a list of those that were sluggish in adhering to the agreement to stop using four chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
Last month, a United Nations official said The Bahamas was “not on track” with the initiative. As a matter of fact, “CFC imports and production are on a rise in those countries,” the official noted.
Officials from the Bahamas Environmental and Scientific Technology Commission’s Ozone Unit traveled to Canada on Tuesday and met with United Nations Environment Programme officials there. As a result of that meeting, Ambassador Smith said The Bahamas is now among six Caribbean nations expected to meet the requirements in 2005.
“We had to step in, intervene and rectify the errors which were in existence. And, as a result of the errors, the governing body required us to clarify the situation and we did so.”
Mr. Smith said UN officials had the impression that The Bahamas was not complying, based on an “incorrect” report. He said the ozone unit “corrected” those errors.
In its report to Mr. Smith, the unit wrote:
“We are now in discussions with the relevant bodies for the multilateral fund secretariat to address all their outstanding issues related to grants they have given to The Bahamas on ozone depletion.
“The initial feedback has been positive and we are confident that we will be able to take care of all outstanding issues with them leaving us with a clean record and a return to the list of good guys.
“There were certain errors that were done. And, we either had not reported or we reported incorrect information. We, therefore, fell in the category of not being compliant on the issue of compliance,” he said. “That was the only issue.”
The UN can conduct its own independent investigations of any country that signed the treaty and is suspected of not adhering to its pledge.
“We are supposed to be a responsible governments,” Mr. Smith said. “It doesn’t help us, it does not help the world if we give incorrect information purposely.”
“It is better for the whole global community for us to actually get this whole thing rectified, but it is never a question as to whether we are telling the truth. We have to be responsible to get the right information.”
CFCs were developed in the early 1930s and are used in a variety of industrial, commercial, and household applications. These substances are non-toxic, non-flammable, and non-reactive with other chemical compounds.
These desirable safety characteristics, along with their stable thermodynamic properties, make them ideal for many applications, such as coolants for commercial and home refrigeration units, aerosol propellants, electronic cleaning solvents, and blowing agents.
Production and use of CFCs experienced nearly uninterrupted growth as demand for products requiring their use rose.
However, during the 1980s, scientists suggested that once emitted into the atmosphere, CFCs significantly deplete the stratospheric ozone layer that shields the planet from damaging UV-B radiation.
Based on their findings, the Montreal Protocol treaty was signed in 1987 by 170 nations that pledged to phase out CFCs, halons (used as fire-extinguishing agents) and carbon tetrachloride (a manufactured compound that does not occur naturally and is used in some industrial applications) by 2000, and methyl chloroform (used as a solvent for adhesives and for metal degreasing) by 2005 by 50 per cent of 1999 level.
The Bahamas is negotiating to receive a UN grant of up to $500,000 to assess the extent of CFCs in this country.
By Khashan Poitier, The Nassau Guardian
