“Critical Use” Exemptions—the Methyl Bromide Loophole

In 1987 methyl bromide was listed as one of the chemicals targeted for elimination under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. The signing governments (the Parties) agreed to phase out use of the fumigant by 2005 in industrialized nations, and by 2015 in developing countries.

Over the next dozen years under the Protocol, emissions of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) were nearly eliminated and the process developed in Montreal became a model for other international environmental accords, including the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. By 2003, use and release of methyl bromide in some developed nations fell to 30% of 1991 baseline levels. In the U.S., according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data obtained by the Natural Resources Defense Council under the Freedom of Information Act, methyl bromide consumption in 2002 declined to levels promised for 2003, an entire year ahead of schedule. (1) Progress in the U.S., by far the largest user of the fumigant, is vital.

But January 2005 has come and gone, and thanks to alignment of the Bush Administration with the big agribusiness and agrichemical lobby, U.S. methyl bromide use has been increasing, not decreasing.

The Parties to the Protocol have allowed “critical use exemptions” (that is, permission to continue using a substance) to provide for special circumstances, such as national security or medical uses with no alternatives. But in 1997 the exemptions set for methyl bromide went further: economic considerations were allowed as factors to determine whether a use was “essential” to justify an exemption. (2) Environmental groups, including PAN North America, argued at the time that inclusion of economic challenges would open the door to increased use of methyl bromide as a soil fumigation pesticide. That is exactly what happened. The Bush Administration has demanded and won exemptions that threaten to undermine the phaseout.

At the Montreal Protocol meeting in 2004, 16 nations were granted exemptions for 16,050 metric tons of methyl bromide in 2005, the year the phaseout was to be complete in developed countries. The U.S. requested by far the largest “critical use” allowance, reversing the successful reductions of previous years by increasing use for 2005–2007 over the level achieved in 2002. While the Parties rebuffed that outlandish proposal, the U.S. was still granted 9,500 tons for 2005, allowing methyl bromide use in the nation to increase. (3)

In July 2005, the Parties recommended approval of 13,466 metric tons of methyl bromide for “critical use” in the developed nations in 2006—a 20% reduction from 2005. Allotments were modest for Australia (9.25 tons); Canada (9 tons) and Japan (75 tons). The United States was allowed 8,075 tons for yet another year’s postponement of the phaseout. (4)

The Executive Director of the UN Environmental Programme, which administers the Montreal Protocol, issued an upbeat statement on the recent exemptions that reads like a sigh of relief for the survival of the Protocol itself, “The important thing about this decision,” he said, “is that it maintains a downward trend in methyl bromide use by developed countries.”

When the Administration first proposed exemptions in 2004 to effectively reverse the U.S. phaseout, Vanessa Bogenholm, an organic strawberry grower and chair of the board of California Certified Organic Farmers testified at the meeting in Montreal, that growers “...have all known that this phaseout was coming for many years and should have been doing major field-size research trials…. Financial concerns of individual farmers,” she declared, “cannot be considered more important than environmental concerns or the health of human beings.” (5)

The U.S. campaign to preserve methyl bromide, when effective alternatives are more than sufficient, is prolonging depletion of the ozone layer to protect the market for an extremely hazardous fumigant. Action at the July 2005 Montreal Protocol meeting is a sign that other countries are resisting this destructive U.S. agenda, but they are still too accommodating. When the Parties meet in December 2005 in Dakar, PAN urges them to close the exemption loophole.

For more information see the website for the UN Environmental Programme Ozone Secretariat, http://www.unep.org/ozone/index.asp. The PANNA website contains extensive resources and fact sheets on methyl bromide’s use for soil fumigation: http://www.panna.org/resources/mb.html.

Other sources: Associated Press, July 2, 2005; http://www.unep.org/ozone/Treaties_and_Ratification/2B_montreal_protocol.asp; Press Release, July 1, 2005.

Notes

1. PANUPS, U.S. Muscles Montreal Protocol on MB Limits, December 10, 2004.

2. The exemption language for methyl bromide included cases that “would result in a significant market disruption”. See http://www.deh.gov.au/atmosphere/ozone/methylbromide/criticaluseexempt.html.

3. UNEP, Report of Second Extraordinary Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (Advance Copy, July 1, 2005), p. 4.

4. Ibid, p. 7.

5. PANUPS, April 5, 2004, Methyl Bromide in Montreal.