Politics of acid rain control in Europe
The efforts of some European governments to establish a concerted international pollution abatement program in order to check the acidification of the environment throughout Europe represents perhaps the most ambitious attempt yet at international cooperation in the environmental field. Progress, however, has been painstakingly slow in both international forums where the issue is being addressed: the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), which comprises all European countries, Western as well as Eastern, and the 12-nation European Economic Community. While both organizations have laid down an international framework for the control of acid rain, the elaboration of concrete measures to curb emissions of acidifying air pollutants is not proceeding fast enough to reverse the acidification process. The provisions of the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution signed in Geneva in 1979 under the auspices of ECE are so vague and general, and subject to so many qualifications, that they do not impose on contracting parties any specific obligations with respect to air pollution control policies. The most important outcome of the convention's development process so far has been the 30% reductive protocol on sulfur emissions adopted in Helsinki in 1985.
- OSTI ID:
- 7145157
- Journal Information:
- Environment; (United States), Journal Name: Environment; (United States) Vol. 30:2; ISSN ENVTA
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
290300 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Environment
Health
& Safety
500200* -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ACID RAIN
AGREEMENTS
AIR POLLUTION ABATEMENT
ATMOSPHERIC PRECIPITATIONS
EUROPE
INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS
POLITICAL ASPECTS
POLLUTION
POLLUTION ABATEMENT
RAIN
TRANSFRONTIER POLLUTION