Behind the scene

Dioxins are among the deadliest chemicals known to humans. These chemicals are by-products of industrial processes. They dissolve readily in oils, fats and non-polar solvents. These chemicals are not volatile and are extremely persistent. Since dioxins are fat-soluble, they bioaccumulate up the food chain. dioxin compounds are transported through the atmosphere as vapours or attached to air borne particulates and can be deposited on soils, plants or other surfaces. They enter water bodies by direct deposition from the atmosphere or by surface runoff and erosion. From soils, these compounds can reenter the atmosphere either as resuspended soil particles or as vapours. In water, they can be resuspended into it from sediments or become buried in deeper sediments.

Dioxins are released mostly from burning of chlorinated compounds e.g, from garbage, medical waste and toxic chemicals.Dioxins from incinerators contaminate the air, water and food passing these deadly pollutants on to people through milk, meat and other fatty animal products. Bleaching of paper with chlorinated compounds, production of pvc plastics, chlorinated pesticides and secondary smeltering of copper also produce dioxins. Essentially, to produce dioxin we need organic matter, chlorine and a reactive thermal environment.

Despite knowing their carcinogenic nature, there is no monitoring of these chemicals in most countries. And where they are monitored, the dioxin politics is extremely intense. In the us , awareness about dioxins has generated much debate. Just when the Hanoi meeting was underway, the us was awaiting the us Environmental Protection Agency's ( epa s) Science Advisory Board's ( sab s) final report on the decade-long study evaluating the potential dangers dioxins pose to humans. But the long-overdue report never came. The report has been mired in controversy since 1980 when the epa prepared its first draft which revealed that dioxins pose a threat to human health. The report also pointed to chemical multinational Dow Chemical as a major source of dioxins. However, when the report was published by epa headquarters, all references to public health and Dow Chemical were deleted and many epa scientists were forced to resign.

In 1984, epa released its first official risk estimate for dioxins showing them to be the most potent synthetic carcinogen ever tested. And as a reaction in 1991, the chlor-alkali industry-group backed organisation, Chlorine Institute, sponsored the infamous Banbury conference in which independent scientists were not invited. The Institute paid consultant George Carlo, an epidemiologist, to bring out a feel-good report on dioxins ,who made an announcement to the Press that "there has been a 'consensus' on a safe limit for dioxin". In September 1994, the epa dioxin reassessment final draft was released reaffirming that dioxins can cause cancer. As expected, the industry scientists rejected several chapters in the draft document, forcing the agency to rewrite them, thereby delaying the process of finalizing the report. After a six-year delay, finally, in June 2000, the epa released a revision of the 1994 reassessment report. And epa found even stronger links between exposure to dioxin and adverse impacts on human health: a fact that the industry groups never wanted the public to know. The industry intensified its aggressive stalling efforts and bottled up the final report due for release in July 2001. Economic stakes were high and the political allies came to their rescue. The release of the final epa report would have meant expensive consequences to the us chemical, beef and poultry industries. Besides, it also entailed far-reaching implications for public health policy of the us government.

"The chemical industry continues to use its backdoor influence to preserve its profits at the expense of public health," says Lois Marie Gibbs of the Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign. Senior Greenpeace International scientist, Pat Costner regrets , " epa is not officially releasing the report because the fear is that once it is released then regulatory policies will have to follow. While the environmentalists are pushing for its official release, the chemical industry is trying to scuttle it."

The politics appears to go deep and reveals how strong lobbies work hand in glove with the government to have their way. According to the us -based Centre for Responsive Politics, an independent organisation, the chemical, livestock and meatpacking industries contributed us $ 1,71,000 to Bush's campaign last year. A report from the Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign titled Behind Closed Doors discloses: in the early 1990s the chemical industry started getting more involved in electoral politics as a way of ensuring that it would have a say in policy decision making. And Frederick Webber, president of the American Chemistry Council ( acc ), became one of Bush's "Pioneers", a group of distinguished business leaders that pledged to raise at least us $1,00,000 for Bush's Presidential Campaign. According to Newsweek , the acc raised over us $3,50,000 for the Bush campaign. "Webber concedes that this generosity is directly related to Bush's willingness to listen to the industry's views," the magazine had reported.

Politics aside, the health impact of dioxins have been clearly brought out by epa in the us . The epa 's report last year recommended a diet with lower animal fat to prevent dioxin exposure. In reaction, more than 200 public interest groups sent a letter to the then us P resident Bill Clinton stating that changing their diet was not the answer. They wanted to eliminate dioxins at source. According to Lois Gibbs, director of the Centre for Health, Environment and Justice, "Changing the individual's diet is a band-aid approach that blames consumers, rather than putting the blame where it belongs -- on the polluters."

Although the epa report has been blocked, in a landmark decision on July 24, 2001, a federal appeals court ordered the us government to rewrite standards for hazardous waste incinerators and cement kilns, ruling that the nation lacked proper limits on airborne emissions of dioxins. It is expected that as more judicial pressure is put on the government, the day is not far when the final epa report is made public.

Internationally infamous
There is a fast recognition worldwide that incineration is a dirty option and should be grounded

Dioxin scare was responsible for the toppling of the Belgian coalition government in 1999. Milk, eggs, dairy products, pork and beef products exported by Belgium were tainted with dioxin found in animal feed. This was tracked to the waste from pcb oils, illegally disposed of into food oils. The European Commission (EC) initiated proceedings against Belgium for violating European Union rules on consumer protection and information.

Like Belgium, Britain is also being haunted by the ghost of the foot and mouth disease, which spelt terror last year. Britain's Food Standards Agency (FSA) has recently said that dioxins from giant foot and mouth funeral pyres may have contaminated milk in nearby farms. The agency has informed dairy farmers about the possibility of higher levels of dioxins present in dairy herds within two kilometres of the pyres.

The dioxin alarm for the Europeans is getting louder and louder. In May 2000, the European Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) found that 80 per cent of human exposure to dioxins is from food of animal origin such as fish, meat and dairy products. While warning that the current average daily human dietary intake of dioxins in Europe is 1.2-3 pg/kg body weight, and has found high levels of dioxins in seafood in Europe.

If the politics of dioxin is knotty, the public health problem of it is trickier still. Dioxins are all pervasive, so there is no safe threshold level for dioxins in the human body. For this very reason, after a four-day long heated debate on June 4, 1998, the World Health Organisation lowered the tolerable daily intake of dioxin from 10 picogrammes per kilogramme (pg/kg) bodyweight to 1 to 4 pg/kg bodyweight. While nobody is sure how much dioxin a person can tolerate without health implications, one thing nobody debates is that dioxin should be prevented wherever possible.

The Ninth Report on Carcinogens from the National Toxicology Programme of the us has set the alarm bells ringing by adding 2,3,7,8 tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin ( tcdd ) to the list of known carcinogens. The epa believes that people who eat rich diet containing dioxin may face a 1-in-100 risk of developing some form of cancer, diabetes or immune system disorders. Another study found a dose-dependent increase in risk of cancer and heart disease among a group of 1,189 workers at a pesticide manufacturing plant in Hamburg, Germany, who were exposed to dioxins between 1952 and 1984.

Marilyn Fingerhut of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health ( niosh ), usa , studied the health of 5,172 workers at 12 chemical plants that manufacture or used to manufacture products contaminated with dioxins. Out of the total, 1,520 had nine times the normal amount of soft tissue sarcoma. Workers also had 42 per cent more cancers of the respiratory tract. These studies are enough to establish the dioxin-cancer link. Taking into view epa 's findings, environmentalists have estimated that about 100 of the roughly 1,400 cancer deaths occurring daily in the us are due to dioxins.

The health threat posed by dioxins are profound. Dioxins can cause skin rashes, skin discolouration, excessive body hair and possibly mild liver damage. That's not all. Diseases such as lymphoma, soft-tissue sarcoma, spina bifida, hydrocephalus and chloracne are also linked to dioxins. A study of Vietnamese veterans, conducted by the us air force physicians, also links dioxin exposure to increases in psychological damage, liver damage, cardiovascular deterioration and degeneration of the endocrine system. Researchers at the niosh found reduced levels of testosterone -- male sex hormone -circulating in the blood of dioxin-exposed male workers.

Worse, another study reveals a high prevalence of leukaemia among children of Australian Vietnam veterans. Children exposed to dioxins in the womb during critical periods of development appear to be the most vulnerable to the toxic effects of dioxins, says a recent American People's Dioxin report by Centre for Health, Environment and Justice. This goes on to show that the risks from dioxins are greater for children and babies because of their higher milk intake, including breast milk and other dairy products. A French magazine Que Choisir recently reported the results of tests showing an average level of 21 picogrammes of dioxins in the breast milk of 15 French women living in rural and urban areas. This was 20 times the set admissible daily dose of one pg/kg of the bodyweight.

Similarly, the Japanese Health and Welfare Ministry findings, based on an analysis of the breast milk taken from 487 women from 1997 to 1998, reveal that dioxin levels are higher among women who eat meat often. A recent report submitted to Britain's Department of Health showed that breast-fed infants receive 17 times the tolerable amounts of dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (pcbs). The epa study also emphasises that dioxins can prevent the immune system from developing properly in an unborn child with lifelong consequences thereby endangering the new generation.

Human exposure to dioxins is mainly through food but the primary source is incinerators. There are more than 210 molecular variations of chlorinated dioxins and furans in emission from incinerators. Modern incinerators still emit large quantities of toxic chemicals and the ashes are dumped in landfills.

With heightened public awareness, an anti-incineration wave is sweeping across the world. A campaign against incinerators in Bangkok got initiated after Lancet reported that teenage boys living near incinerators had smaller testicles and female teens had smaller breasts.

In uk, the incinerator has become a political hot potato. The Labour and the Conservatives are at loggerheads over the incinerator issue. The Labour Party wants 100 new incinerators and the Conservative Party is planning a moratorium on new incinerators until "independent British scientific evidence proves they are safe". Recently, the uk government's National Society for Clean Air released a report and held a conference in which the uk authorities claimed "incineration with energy recovery is likely to play an increasing role in the future management of waste in the uk , to meet requirements in the ec Landfilling Directive to divert waste from landfill." The Friends of the Earth ( foe ) flayed it strongly terming it "grossly misleading". Said Mike Childs, foe s Campaigns director, "The truth is that we need to drastically improve recycling in this country."

The ground for the ongoing uk political battle was set by one of the Greenpeace International's report which quoted a study conducted on 70 municipal solid waste ( msw ) uk incinerators operating between 1974 and 1987 and 307 hospital waste incinerators from 1953 to 1980 identifying a two-fold increase in the cancer deaths in the children living nearby. The ten municipal waste incinerators operating in England in the past two years have breached their licences 553 times and faced just one prosecution.

In Japan, release of dioxins continued unabated from its 1,854 incinerators until people realised the havoc they were causing. A government study found that nearly 90 per cent of the dioxins released every year were formed during waste incineration. Simultaneously, the Japanese media reported a study carried on 415 mothers of new-borns across the country, that on an average the babies daily consumed almost six times the safe level of dioxins.

After establishing the link, residents close to incinerators voiced their ire. With the help of lawyers, the residents of Tokorozawa in northern Japan put pressure on the local administration to ground the incinerators. Recently the Shiga residents protested against the incinerator being installed in their locality. The Tokorozawa government was the first local government to pass an ordinance on dioxin emissions in March 1998. A study by Japan's environment ministry showed that nearly 90 per cent of the dioxins released annually are created during incineration. Immediately, Japan formulated its new dioxin reduction law suspending operations of all the incinerators in the country. The government has also set a national target of March 2003 to reduce domestic dioxin emissions by 90 per cent compared with 1997 levels.

Similarly in the us , incineration industry suffered setback after the epa reported that most incinerators were working below standards. People in the us , uk and Japan are demanding redesigning or closure of incinerators. The pressure is mounting and fast.

Indians are yet to realise the gravity of dioxin contamination and its related health effects. The government has not conducted any study to find out the level of dioxin exposure in the population. The laid back attitude of the government is reflected by the fact that nowhere in the country dioxins are monitored. But absence of evidence does not indicate evidence of absence. The us epa clearly states that "the lack of clear indication of diseases in the general population attributable to dioxin-like compounds should not be considered strong evidence for no effects of exposure to dioxins. Rather a lack of clear indication of diseases may be result of the inability of our current data and scientific tools to directly detect effects at these levels of exposure."

Environmentalists agree that dioxins are being produced all over the country but due to lack of any scientific studies, no one knows the magnitude of the problem. "Neither the existence of dioxins nor the sources of dioxins are currently officially acknowledged by the government agencies. There exists no data on dioxin levels in the country," reveals Nityanand Jayaraman, Asia Toxic Campaigner.

A major source of dioxins in India is poly vinyl chloride ( pvc ), both during its production and disposal. Burning of unsegregated waste containing pvc is a common practice in India. What is frightening is the fact that plastic percentage is increasing in our waste and pvc is extensively used in the country (see graph: PVC: picking up). The Central Pollution Control Board ( cpcb ) estimates that the per capita consumption of plastic has gone up from 1.7 kg in 1997 to 4 kg in 2000. Other estimates point out that in the next two years, pvc capacity in India is expected to increase by around 1,30,000 tonnes . At present, Indian plastic industry produces more than 70,000 tonnes of pvc a month. At current rates, pvc supply will fall short of demand, which is expected to rise at a compound annual growth rate ( cgar ) of 13 per cent. The shortage will mean importing more pvc , generating more pvc waste, burning more pvc , and finally producing more dioxins.

With unsegregated plastic waste growing, burning is the normal practice for disposal. Says Bharati Chaturvedi, director of New-Delhi based non-governmental organisation ( ngo) , Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group, "Rather than having large 'factories' of dioxins in India, we have small 'factories' spread all across the country, where monitoring and enforcement becomes very difficult. And these 'factories' are our backyards." She adds, " The government offices themselves burn chlorinated waste and produce dioxins. A building like Krishi Bhawan in New Delhi, which houses Indian ministerial departments, produces huge amount of paper waste daily. But due to 'security' reasons waste pickers are not allowed to collect the waste. Instead, the waste is burnt, leading to dioxin emissions."

Production of chlorinated paper is also a source of dioxins. And the Indian paper industry is a big polluter (see box: Paper industry: the big dioxin factory ).

Another well-known source of dioxins is the biomedical waste ( bmw ) incinerators. Environmentalists raised a lot of hue and cry about dioxins during 1996 when the Biomedical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules were being discussed. The debate got impetus when a public interest litigation (pil) was filed by B L Wadhera, a Delhi-based environmental lawyer, in the Delhi High Court (hc) in 1998. His cause of concern was that the burning of waste and human anatomical parts in hospital incinerators was leading to toxic emissions, which could cause cancer. In December 2000, the court directed the cpcb to inspect hospitals in the capital and find out if dioxins were being emitted and to what extent.Complying with the hc order, cpcb carried out inspection in eight premier hospitals of Delhi, including All India Institute of Medical Sciences ( aiims ) and Safdarjung hospital, and submitted its report in January 2001. The report revealed that none of the hospital incinerators were following the prescribed norms. Inspite of the Biomedical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 1998 which ban the burning of pvc , most hospitals were flouting the rules. Not a single incinerator maintained proper temperatures in the secondary chamber as specified by the bmw Rules 1998. Emission standards, as stipulated in the rules, were not being followed.

The cpcb report elaborates upon the kind of waste being burnt in the incinerators, but hardly makes any mention of dioxins. All it mentions is that 'the dioxins can be emitted from the hospital incinerators if the temperature of combustion is low and if chlorinated plastics such as pvc is present in the waste. The dioxins can also be formed if combustion is not complete in the secondary chamber'. Says Bharat Sharma, assistant environmental engineer, cpcb, Delhi, "We informed the court that cpcb does not have equipment or resources to monitor dioxins, hence cannot say anything."

Other studies share similar findings and point out that Indian incinerators are at best furnaces. For instance, a two-month study undertaken by New Delhi-based ngo Srishti in 2000 revealed that Delhi has about 59 bmw incinerators, which is an 80 per cent increase in last two years. The survey found out that sixty per cent of the incinerators were functioning under low temperature and 38 per cent of hospitals were incinerating plastic waste and would be producing dioxins. Not just Delhi, in Mumbai too out of the 10 bmw incinerators, eight lacked basic design parameters. Burning of pvc in incinerators in Chennai also goes on unabated. This fact is well accepted by government officials. Sharma admits, "Although the bmw Rules ban burning pvc , the practice continues in the hospitals."

Even when pvc -coated copper wires are not burnt in big fires, they are openly melted by ragpickers, who get a good price for copper. Agarwal says that recovering copper cables from pvc sheaths is hazardous as it will produce dioxins.

Whereas the problem of dioxins seems to be increasing by leaps and bounds in the country, the government is tightlipped on the issue. There is a lack of monitoring mechanism for dioxins in the country. This absence is ascribed to the high cost involved. Says Sharma, "Monitoring dioxins involves huge amounts of money. Every sample collected needs to be treated with a different solution, which is very expensive." The cost, say experts, can be as high as us $ 600 to us $ 800 per sample.

The casual approach of government officials towards the public health problem of dioxins becomes evident when questioned about dioxins standards in the country. Whereas a senior cpcb official proudly claims that in India "we have our own guideline values for dioxins emissions", another official informs Down To Earth that such Indian standards are absent. We learn, India follows the us epa guidelines for dioxin emissions, which are separate for new (2.3 and 0.6 nanogram per dry standard cubic metre (ng/dscm)) and existing (2.3 ng/dscm) medical waste incinerators. But these values hold no weight in India as monitoring devices are not in place.

On the one hand bmw incinerators would presumably continue to emit deadly dioxins, on the other hand, Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (mnes) has embarked on the waste-to-energy (wte) programme in the country. Under the programme, it is promoting burning of waste to produce energy. But again it fails to address the problem of dioxins. "Pelletisation means compressing waste to make pellets, which are burnt to produce energy. But Indian cities generate mixed waste, which often contains chlorinated stuff. Burning such pellets again means releasing dioxins," says Ravi Agarwal, Srishti's coordinator.Fires in the buildings also lead to dioxin emissions as the maximum amount of pvc (38 per cent) is used by the Indian construction industry. Even when pvc-coated copper wires are not burnt in big fires, they are openly melted by ragpickers, who get a good price for copper. Agarwal says that recovering copper cables from pvc sheaths is hazardous as it will produce dioxins. Whereas the problem of dioxins seems to be increasing by leaps and bounds in the country, the government is tightlipped on the issue. There is a lack of monitoring mechanism for dioxins in the country. This absence is ascribed to the high cost involved. Says Sharma, "Monitoring dioxins involves huge amounts of money. Every sample collected needs to be treated with a different solution, which is very expensive." The cost, say experts, can be as high as us $ 600 to us $ 800 per sample.

The casual approach of government officials towards the public health problem of dioxins becomes evident when questioned about dioxins standards in the country. Whereas a senior cpcb official proudly claims that in India "we have our own guideline values for dioxins emissions", another official informs Down To Earth that such Indian standards are absent. We learn, India follows the us epa guidelines for dioxin emissions, which are separate for new (2.3 and 0.6 nanogram per dry standard cubic metre (ng/dscm)) and existing (2.3 ng/dscm) medical waste incinerators. But these values hold no weight in India as monitoring devices are not in place.

Dealing with dioxins
Prevention is the key to deal with the problem of dioxins. For India, prevention becomes all the more important because we cannot afford the costly dioxin control mechanisms. Agarwal avers, "Prevention is better than cure and since we have not made large investments in waste technologies, we should look at a preventive rather than the end-of-pipe approach. Do not repeat the mistakes of other countries."

A large amount of dioxins can be prevented from being released in India if pvc products are labelled. "Since people using plastic are not able to differentiate between pvc and non-pvc products, some type of colour coding could prove useful," says Chaturvedi. Questions Agarwal, "Although the government has banned the burning of pvc but has not mandated the labelling of it. So how does it ensure that pvc is not burnt?"

Another option is to introduce the concept of extended producer responsibility (epr) whereby the manufacturer and distributor is made responsible for the packaging it creates, thus avoiding littering of chlorinated packaging material. Various types of 'eco-taxes' could be proposed to change consumer behaviour and move them away from hazardous products like pvc.

The options for disposal are limited. Either the waste is carefully segregated to remove pvc material and burnt in technically compliant incinerators. Or the waste is disinfected and shredded to be disposed of in a landfill without contaminating soil or water. There are many non-burn medical waste technologies now available namely autoclaves and microwaves. Autoclaving or steam sterilization is a process where waste is exposed to steam for a sufficient temperature/pressure/ time period to assure the destruction of microorganisms. Steam temperatures are usually maintained at 121 c or slightly higher and the process runs for 15 to 30 minutes. Steam disinfects the waste, which can further be reused or recycled.

Another option is microwaving of medical waste. This technology relies on treating hospital waste with moist heat and conventional microwaves at temperatures of 940 c to disinfect it before disposing in landfill.

The Super Critical Water Method pulverizes the waste (plastic), mixes it with water at about 500 c to break it down into gas, oil and water. By controlling the temperature and pressure, light oil, gasoline or heavy oil can be recovered.

Averting a catastrophe
Dioxins are the most intricate chemicals known to us and much more research will be needed to identify the various sources of dioxins. But already, many countries are phasing out uses of chlorine and pvc. Germany, for instance, has banned use of pvc in building construction. People are demanding healthy waste disposal methods . Manila, Philippines, has already banned all incineration. And although the chemical industry is using its might to misinform and delay action, public pressure is bound to mount. n



========================================================== Written by Tirtho Banerjee with inputs from Chitra Gopalakrishnan, Washington, Gopal Krishna and Nidhi Jamwal

On the issue of quantitative restrictions on the use of flexibility mechanisms by industrialised countries to meet their emission reduction commitments, once again the EU compromised on its position. It gave up on its demand of meeting at least 50 per cent of commitments through action at home. The agreement merely says that domestic efforts should constitute a significant element of industrialised countries' efforts to meet reduction commitments. Moreover, the facilitative branch, instead of the enforcement branch, will assess if a country abides by this provision. Industrialised countries can participate in these only if they have:

• put in place a national system to estimate emissions of ghgs and their absorption by sinks, at least a year before the start of the commitment period, that is, by 2007.

• included additional information needed to ensure compliance with emissions reduction objectives in their annual inventory of emissions of GHGS and their absorption by sinks.

Moreover, only those countries that have accepted the agreement on compliance (to be negotiated) can use credits obtained through these mechanisms. Japan and the us were not happy that participation in CDM projects by an industrialised country was made conditional to accepting the compliance agreement.

Defining the meaning of equity in the context of mechanisms, G77 and China pointed out that CDM allows an increase in emissions in industrialised countries and a decrease in developing countries. Therefore, instead of reducing the existing inequities in emissions between developing and industrialised countries, CDM further widens the gap. The agreement asks industrialised countries to undertake domestic action, as per their national circumstances, with a view to reduce emissions in a manner that helps in narrowing per capita differences between the North and the South.

JI and CDM: The agreement does not give a list of eligible projects under the two project-based mechanisms JI and CDM. Instead, the choice of projects is left to the host country, which will decide if a particular project furthers its sustainable development objectives. However, it asks industrialised countries to refrain from pursuing nuclear projects under both mechanisms. Countries like Japan, Canada, Russia and Australia wanted to include nuclear in CDM. The EU and G77 and China were against nuclear under CDM.

The EU did not want sinks under CDM, but a group of industrialised countries wanted to take credits for all types of lulucf projects within CDM. It was finally decided that for the first commitment period, LULUCF projects under CDM would be restricted to afforestation and reforestation projects. Credits from these activities should not exceed one per cent of an industrialised country's emissions in 1990. Negotiations for the second commitment period will decide how these projects will be treated in future commitment periods.

An executive board will supervise implementation of CDM. This board will be elected at COP-7 to ensure a prompt start for CDM. The board will consist of 10 members: one each from five UN regional groups, one from SIDS, and two each from industrialised and developing countries. It is also entrusted with the task of developing simplified procedures for specific small-scale projects to facilitate equitable regional distribution of CDM projects. Japan and Australia were not in favour of according preferential treatment to such projects.

Emissions trading: As a safeguard against overselling, it was decided that an industrialised country should keep at least 90 per cent of its assigned amount (the amount of GHGS that a country is allowed to emit under the protocol), or 100 per cent of five times its total ghg emissions in the most recently reviewed inventory, whichever is lower, as reserve. The umbrella group wanted to substitute the present percentage value in both choices by 70 per cent, while the EU and G77 and China wanted it to be as high as 98 per cent.

The second choice of retaining five times a country's emission in the most recent inventory increases the amount of 'hot air' available for selling. During the commitment period, countries like Russia and Ukraine are likely to emit much less than their emissions in 1990. It is highly probable that in their case the second option will be lower. Hence, they will be required to keep a lower amount in reserve resulting in a greater availability of hot air.

A formal complete decision on various aspects of this issue was not possible at Bonn and was forwarded for further consideration and adoption at the next round of formal negotiations in Morocco.

What price?
The Kyoto Protocol with the Bonn compromises is even less likely to address the problem of climate change. At best, it has some political worth, in showing the US that the protocol can live without it. "The EU made considerable concessions to get this deal but it was a worthwhile price to pay," said EU environment commissioner Margot Wallstrm. "This is a victory for the multilateral negotiating process. It signals to citizens all over the world that the international community is able and willing to tackle global problems together."