(USA's)Rich States'(pesticide)Demands Threaten Environment(Ozone) Treaty

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=7&u=/nm/20041125/sc_nm/environment_ozone_dc

(USA's)Rich States'(pesticide)Demands Threaten Environment(Ozone) Treaty

Thu Nov 25, 9:55 AM ET By Alan Crosby

PRAGUE (Reuters) - Demands by the United States and other wealthy nations to delay the phasing out of a pesticide that depletes the ozone layer threaten to unravel a key global environmental treaty, experts said on Thursday.

Experts and officials attending a United Nations sponsored meeting on substances that deplete the ozone layer said the Montreal Protocol is at risk because of differences over quotas on the use of methyl bromide, used mainly in fumigating soil.

Under the treaty, signed in 1987 and hailed as one of the most effective environmental treaties ever, the use of methyl bromide was to be phased out in developing nations by 2005.

But the United States, the world's largest user of the chemical, is asking this week's meeting in Prague to allow it "critical use exemptions," a move derided by experts as a step backward in the treaty. <snip>

Soil fumigants are expensive and used mostly for high-cash crops.

Money talks, for sure, and those who have it are saying, "I've got mine, f*ck you."

sigh ....

:-)

Yep, money talks and the environment walks.