Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
1987). Although not a legally binding
document, it did impose a certain moral
obligation on the signatories to reduce acid
pollution. That was generally insufficient,
however, and after additional conferences in
Stockholm (1982), Ottawa (1984) and Munich
(1984), the UNECE was forced, in 1985, to
prepare an additional protocol on sulphur
emissions. This was a legally binding document,
which required its signatories to reduce
transboundary emissions of SO 2 by 30 per cent
(of the 1980 levels) before 1993. Many
subsequently improved on that figure (see Table
4.1), but fourteen of the original thirty-five
participants in the 1979 ECELRTAP
Convention refused to sign, among them Britain
and the United States (Park 1987).
Subsequently, both have become embroiled with
neighbouring states, which signed the protocol,
and the resulting confrontation provides
excellent examples of the economic and political
problems accompanying attempts to reduce
acid rain at the international level.
programmes which will make a 50 per cent
reduction possible by 1994 (Israelson 1987).
Over 80 per cent of the 1994 objective had been
met by 1991 (Environment Canada 1991). Such
commitments as have been made by the United
States, have been in the form of finance for
increased research. Sulphur dioxide emissions
have been reduced in New England and in the
Mid-Atlantic states, but emissions continue to
increase in the mid-west and southeastern states
(Cortese 1986). It is possible that by the year
2000 SO 2 emissions will have risen by 8 to 13
per cent (Ellis et al. 1990), although legislation
has been put in place to reduce emissions by some
9 million tonnes (Howard and Perley 1991).
The pollution most affecting Canada comes
from the mid-west, particularly the Ohio valley,
where six states emit more than a million tonnes
of SO 2 per year (Israelson 1987). This area, too,
is the most resistant to abatement procedures
because of their potentially negative impact on a
regional economy based on high-sulphur
bituminous coal, and its representatives have
lobbied strongly and successfully against the
institution of emission controls.
Such opposition to acid rain control soured
relationships between Canada and the United
States. Discussions between the two countries
went on for over a decade before any substantive
agreement on the problem of transboundary
transportation of acid rain was reached. This
came about finally as part of a comprehensive
US Clean Air Act passed into law in 1990
(Howard and Perley 1991). The full effects will
not be felt until the end of the century, but the
legislation ensures a brighter future for the acid
sensitive environment of eastern Canada and the
United States.
Canada and the United States
Both Canada and the United States are major
producers of acid gases (see Figure 4.14). Canada
ranks fifth overall, in the global SO 2 emissions
table (Park 1987), but produces less than one
fifth of the US total. Canadian emissions of NO X
are only one tenth of those in the US. When per
capita emissions are considered, however, the
Canadian output of SO 2 is about double that of
the US and NO X per capita output is about the
same north and south of the border (Ellis et al.
1990). Both countries are also exporters of acid
gases, with the United States sending three times
as much SO 2 to Canada as Canada sends to the
United States (Cortese 1986). It is this
discrepancy, and the damage that it causes, which
is at the root of the North American acid rain
controversy.
As a member of the so-called '30 per cent club',
Canada is obligated to reduce SO 2 emissions by
30 per cent of the 1980 base level before 1993,
and has already implemented abatement
Britain and Scandinavia
Britain was one of the few nations in Europe
not to join the '30 per cent club' when it was
formed, although it subsequently revealed
plans to reduce SO 2 emissions by 60 per cent.
Situated to the north-west of the continent, it
was relatively free from external emissions of
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