“PRTRs in Action: The Kiev Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers and its relevance to SAICM” Michael Stanley-Jones Environmental Information Management Officer Environment, Housing and Land Management Division United Nations Economic Commission for Europe PRTRs in Action, Side event to the Central and Eastern Europe Regional Meeting on the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management 4-6 December 2006, Riga, Latvia

OUTLINE I. The role of PRTRs in SAICM Global Plan of Action and Overarching Policy Strategy II. Introduction to the Kiev Protocol on PRTRs III. Tools for promoting international coordination of PRTR capacity building IV. Some applications to Multilateral Environmental Agreements

PRTRs in SAICM Global Plan of Action and Overarching Policy Strategy Cooperative action on global priorities Encouraging implementation of existing internationally recognized standards, tools and approaches, such as GHS and PRTRs (Executive summary, para. 8 (c)) Activities Knowledge and information 124. Develop a national PRTR/emission inventory design process involving affected and interested parties 125. Use PRTRs tailored to variable national conditions as a source of valuable environmental information for industry, Governments and the public and as mechanisms to stimulate reductions in emissions

PRTRs in SAICM 2 Governance 177. Establish the required framework for creating national PRTRs 178. Promote a political consensus in in favour of public access to national environmental information 178. Manage information dissemination from PRTRs so that risks are communicated in a timely and accurate fashion without unduly alarming the public 192. Promote within the industrial sector the adoption of PRTRs and cleaner production methods

PRTRs in SAICM 3 Capacity-building and technical cooperation 222. Strengthen mechanisms for reporting and consolidating information necessary to produce baseline overviews that will help determine domestic management priorities and gaps (e.g., PRTRs and inventories)…

From the Aarhus Convention to the Protocol on PRTRs UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters 25 June 1998 - Adoption of the Convention at the 4th Ministerial “Environment for Europe” Conference, Aarhus, Denmark. Signed by 39 countries and the European Community 30 Oct 2001- Entry into force of the Convention 21 May 2003 - Adoption of the Protocol on PRTRs at extra-ordinary meeting of the Parties, within the framework of the 5th Ministerial “Environment for Europe” Conference (Kiev, Ukraine) UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan recently described the drafting as having global significance as a 'giant step forward in the development of international law in this field' it is the first legally binding UN instrument to address the issues covered by what we might call environmental democracy in a detailed and systematic way Secretary General: Rio +10 meeting: examine the global relevance of the Convetion prinicples

Status of Convention Ratifications Kyrgyzstan Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg * Malta Moldova, Rep. of Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Tajikistan Turkmenistan Ukraine United Kingdom European Community * Albania Armenia Austria Azerbaijan Belarus Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland Former Yugoslav Rep. of Macedonia France Georgia Greece Hungary Italy Kazakhstan Convention total = 39 Parties (PRTR Protocol: 37 Signatories, including Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Serbia & Montenegro. Protocol Parties as 1 Sep 2006 indicated by * )

Access to information provisions Selected features of Convention article 5 “Active Dissemination” Transparency and accessibility of information systems Immediate dissemination of information in cases of imminent threat to health or environment Sufficient product information to ensure informed environmental choices Pollutant release and transfer registers Increased access to information through Internet Article 5, paragraph 3 … each Party to ensure that environmental Information progressively becomes available In electronic databases which are easily accessible to the public through public telecommunication networks Requirement for p.a. to actively disseminate certain types of information. In a transparant and accessible way f.I. by public registers and lists. Categories of information Parties must take steps in developing a Pollutant Release and Transfer Register. Use of Internet Parties must publish and disseminate state of the environment reports

Legal basis of PRTR Protocol in Aarhus Convention Legal basis: article 5, para. 9 and article 10, para. 2 (e) and (i) of the Aarhus Convention, requiring each Party “to take steps to establish progressively ... a coherent, nationwide system of pollution inventories or registers on a structured, computerized and publicly accessible database compiled through standardized reporting.” (art. 5, para. 9) … taking into account international processes and developments, including the elaboration of an appropriate instrument concerning pollution release and transfer registers or inventories ….” (art. 10, para. 2(i) )

Requirements of Protocol on PRTRs Facilities and pollutants covered General obligations placed on Parties Obligations placed on owners / operators Elements of reporting Quality assessment and validation Future steps and Possible applications (not required)

Facilities covered Facilities covered (annex I) include: Thermal power stations and refineries Mining and metallurgical industries Chemical plants Waste and waste-water management plants Paper and timber industries Intensive livestock production and aquaculture Food and beverage production Textiles, Tanneries, Shipbuilding

Pollutants covered Pollutants covered (annex II) include: Greenhouse gases Acid rain pollutants Ozone-depleting substances Heavy metals Certain carcinogens, such as dioxins TOTAL: 86 pollutants N.B. National registers may include additional facilities and substances, e.g. European Union includes 91 individual substances or groups of substances

Government Chooses among various technical options for the design of a central, publicly accessibly register to determine the institutional framework required for ensuring a coordinated system of information flow to it Sets forth the rights and responsibilities of various key players, e.g. the obligation of pollutant-emitting facilities to report, and the right of the general public to participate in decisions concerning PRTRs

Elements explicitly set forth in the Protocol or implicit in its requirements 1. Institution to manage the national PRTR system (art. 2, para. 5) 2. Structure for inter-agency coordination 3. Appropriate systems for enforcement (art. 3, para. 1) Collection, validation and management of data 4. Collection of data submitted by owners or operators of reporting facilities (art. 7, paras. 2 and 5) 5. Assessment of the quality of the data collected in terms of completeness, consistency and credibility (art. 10, para. 2) 6. Collection of information on releases from diffuse sources (art. 7, para. 4) 8. Development and management of a register comprising a structured, computerized database able to maintain data for 10 reporting years (art. 4, para. (j) and art. 5, para. 3) 9. Dissemination of information and training (arts. 8, 11 and 15).

Basic obligation of operators To submit the information specified with respect to those pollutants and waste for which thresholds were exceeded Each Party decides with respect to a particular pollutant to apply either a release threshold or a manufacture, process or use (MPU) threshold will be used Facility operators do not choose under which requirement (pollutant threshold or MPU) to report

(Article 7 - continued) Reporting requirements of operators Each Party shall require owners or operators of facilities specified in annex I who Release any pollutant specified in annex II in quantities exceeding applicable thresholds, Transfer off-site any pollutant in annex II in quantities exceeding Transfer off-site hazardous waste exceeding 2 tons per year or other waste exceeding 2,000 tons per year, where the Party has opted for waste-specific reporting (as in the European Union) Transfer off-site any pollutant specified in annex II in waste water destined for waste-water treatment in quantities exceeding the applicable threshold or Undertake one or more activities specified in annex I at or above the employee threshold specified in annex I, and Manufacture, process or uses any pollutant specified in annex II

Specific reporting elements Name, street address, geographical location and activities of the reporting facility Name of the owner or operator and, as appropriate, company Name and numerical identifier of each specified pollutant Amount of each specified pollutant released to the environment, both in aggregate and according to whether release is to air, to water, or to land, including underground injection either amount of each pollutant transferred off-site in the reporting year, distinguishing between amounts for disposal and for recovery, and name and address of facility receiving the transfer, or amount of waste transferred off-site, distinguishing between hazardous waste and other waste, for any operations, indicating whether waste is destined for recovery or disposal and for transboundary movements of hazardous waste, name and address of the recoverer or disposer and actual site receiving the transfer

Reporting elements (continued) Amount of each specified pollutant in waste water transferred off-site Type of methodology used to derive information on amounts, indicating whether based on measurement, calculation or estimation (M, C, E) Information to include releases and transfers from routine and from extraordinary events Owners or operators to be required to collect releases and transfers data needed “with appropriate frequency”, and to Records of the data from which the reported information was derived must be kept available for the competent authorities for 5 years, including description of M, C or E.

Quality assessment (Article 10) Owners or operators are to assure the quality of the information they report Quality assessment of data duty of the Parties, in particular as to completeness – consistency – credibility taking into account guidelines developed by the MOP Draft Guidance to implementation of the Protocol on PRTRs Penultimate version released 31 July 2006 available on web sites of UNECE Working Group on PRTRs and WGEMA

‘Best Available Information’ (BAI) standard (article 9, para. 2) Owners or operators of facilities required to ensure the quality of information they report and to use “best available information” ‘Best available information’ may include monitoring data emission factors mass balance equations indirect monitoring or other calculations engineering judgments, and other methods Nb. EU adopting more stringent guidance on BAI

Quality assurance and control Calibration and maintenance of the monitoring system Use of recognized quality management systems Periodic checks by an external accredited laboratory Certification of instruments and personnel under recognized certification schemes Elements for guidelines on strengthening environmental monitoring and reporting by enterprises, para 36 (i) (ECE/CEP/AC.10/2006/4)

Validation Where appropriate, validation should be done in accord with internationally approved methodologies e.g. ISO, European Committee for Standardization (CEN) However, in some cases, national or sector methodologies may be superior to Internationally-approved ones, or such approval may be pending (“HOT ISSUE”) Validation of data may be more easily achievable if responsibility is delegated to local or regional authorities or to the regional or local offices of national authorities, since they will be closer to the operators and are more likely to have an overview of their activities Guidance on validation is evolving

Next steps for Protocol’s future implementation Setting up the Protocol’s institutional architecture: rules of procedure and compliance review mechanism financial arrangements technical assistance mechanism, international cooperation and reporting International PRTR Coordinating Group SAICM / ICCM etc Completion of technical guidance on implementation Further guidance on dissemination of PRTR information or data users’ guide suggested

Possible future applications Pan-European Environment and Health Information System (Environment-for-Europe Ministerial Conference / WHO Europe) Commercial property management information systems (“due diligence” research, e.g. Environment Agency of England and Wales) Integration into Global Reporting Initiative, Socially Responsible Investment (SRI), and evolving ISO standards and OECD guidelines SAICM national performance tracking under ICCM Convergence of regional PRTR systems (North American Taking Stock, European PRTR, East Asia?)

PRTR success story “For the 10-year period from 1988 to 1997, atmospheric emissions of some 260 known carcinogens and reproductive toxins from the United States Toxics Release Inventory reporting facilities have been reduced by approximately 85% in the State of California, and by some 42% in the rest of the country (i.e., for all chemicals listed in California as known to cause either cancer or reproductive toxicity and reported as air emissions under TRI ).” From P. Sand (2002)

MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON THE AARHUS CONVENTION WEBSITE: http://www.unece.org/env/pp/prtr Aarhus Clearinghouse http://aarhusclearinghouse.unece.org