Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP)
The Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP), established in 1979, is one of the earliest international treaties aimed at addressing the issue of air pollution that affects multiple countries. Its creation was prompted by scientific findings in the 1960s that demonstrated how industrial emissions could cause environmental harm across borders. The convention emphasizes the responsibility of nations to manage their resources without causing damage to others, promoting cooperation in research and emissions reduction strategies among its signatories.
With 34 initial parties, including several European countries and the United States, CLRTAP has led to the development of multiple protocols addressing various pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Over the years, significant reductions in air pollutants have been achieved, demonstrating the effectiveness of the treaty. While it primarily focused on air quality, CLRTAP has also contributed indirectly to efforts against climate change, as some regulated pollutants are greenhouse gases. The framework established by CLRTAP continues to provide essential data and monitoring capabilities that assist in understanding environmental issues, including global warming.
Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP)
- DATE: Signed November 1979
Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) is one of the oldest international environmental treaties and one whose success made it a model for later agreements. It addresses air pollution, including GHG emissions, and creates structures for gathering and assessing data.
PARTICIPATING NATIONS: 1980: Belarus, Hungary, Portugal, Russian Federation, Ukraine; 1981: Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, France, Norway, Sweden, United States; 1982: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, European Community, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom; 1983: Greece, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Turkey; 1985: Poland; 1991: Cyprus, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia; 1993: Czech Republic, Slovakia; 1994: Latvia, Lithuania; 1995: Republic of Moldova; 1997: Armenia, Malta, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; 1999: Georgia, Monaco; 2000: Estonia, Kyrgyzstan; 2001: Kazakhstan, Serbia; 2002: Azerbaijan; 2005: Albania; 2006: Montenegro
Background
In the 1960s, scientists proved for the first time that the acidification of lakes in Scandinavia was the result of industrial emissions of sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides throughout Europe. In 1972, the year the term “acid rain” was first used, the United Nations convened the Conference on the Human Environment, also known as the Stockholm Conference, the UN’s first conference on international environmental issues. This conference led to increased public awareness of air pollution and to research that confirmed the theory that air pollution could travel large distances and cause harm far away from its source.
It was clear that air pollution generated in one country could damage the environment in another and that only through international cooperation could the environment be protected. After five more years of research and diplomacy, the Economic Commission for Europe convened a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, during which the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) was signed. Thirty-four governments and the European Community signed the treaty between November 13 and 16, 1979, and it went into effect in 1983. The Holy See and San Marino were to the convention in 1979 but did not ratify it. Of the industrialized nations in the Northern Hemisphere, only China and Japan are not parties to the convention.
Summary of Provisions
The convention was based on the principles that individual nations have
the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental policies, and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States.
Contracting parties agreed to share research and other information and to gradually reduce air pollution. They agreed to hold talks between those nations most affected by air pollution and those generating the highest levels of it and to fully implement the work of the Cooperative Programme for the Monitoring and Evaluation of the Long-Range Transmission of Air Pollutants in Europe (generally referred to as EMEP). Finally, the convention created an executive body, which would meet annually, and a secretariat, which would convene meetings and direct the dissemination of information.
Most important, the parties agreed to take reasonable steps to reduce air pollution:
Each Contracting Party undertakes to develop the best policies and strategies including air quality management systems and, as part of them, control measures compatible with balanced development, in particular by using the best available technology which is economically feasible.
The original convention addressed levels of sulfur dioxide only, but it recognized that further research could indicate a need to consider other pollutants.
Between 1984 and 1999, the convention was extended with eight additional agreements, or protocols, each signed by between twenty-one and forty-two parties. The first addressed financing of EMEP, but the others addressed specific pollutants and targets for their reductions: sulfur (1985 and 1994), nitrogen oxides (1988), volatile organic compounds(1991), heavy metals (1998), persistent organic pollutants (1998), and pollutants leading to acidification, eutrophication, and ground-level ozone (1999). Several of these protocols established reduction targets based on the concept of critical load.
Significance for Climate Change
Several targets established under LRTAP have been met. The 1985 Protocol on Sulfur Emissions, for example, was entered into force in 1987, and its target of reducing emissions by 30 percent by 1993 was met or exceeded by all twenty-one parties. This success encouraged the signatories to agree to the 1994 Protocol on Further Reduction of Sulfur Emissions, which used the concept of critical load rather than strict percentages, to establish targets. Overall, the levels of sulfur in the air decreased some 60 percent in Europe, and almost 50 percent in the United States and Canada, between 1979 and 2004. In addition, nineteen of the twenty-five parties to the 1988 Protocol Concerning the Control of Nitrogen Oxides met their targets of freezing and then reducing their emissions of nitrogen oxides and ammonia.
The success of LRTAP led the UNECE to press for four more environmental agreements: the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (1991; also known as the Espoo Convention); the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (1992); the Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents (1992); and the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making, and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998; also known as the Aarhus Convention).
Although preventing global warming was not the impetus for LRTAP, several of the pollutants regulated by the convention have direct and indirect effects on global warming. Nitrous oxide, for example, is itself a greenhouse gas (GHG). Emissions of nitrogen oxide and VOCs create ozone, another GHG. Parties to LRTAP, therefore, had already made some progress toward reducing emissions of GHGs before treaties such as the (1992) and the Paris Agreement (2016) were drafted.
By funding EMEP, LRTAP put into place structures for monitoring and assessing air quality and for disseminating research findings. These structures have provided useful data for the study of global warming. As scientists study the relatively new questions about the effects of on the processes of acidification and eutrophication, they will draw on data already gathered under the terms of the 1999 LRTAP protocol. Similarly, researchers will use data gathered under LRTAP to develop methodologies for determining the most cost-effective emissions reduction targets.
Bibliography
"Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution." UN Treaty Collection, 2024, treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg‗no=XXVII-1&chapter=27&clang=‗en. Accessed 20 Dec. 2024.
Kuokkanen, Tuomas. “The Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution.” In Making Treaties Work: Human Rights, Environment, and Arms Control, edited by Geir Ulfstein, Thilo Marauhn, and Andreas Zimmermann. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Sliggers, Johan, and Willem Kakebeeke. Clearing the Air: Twenty-Five Years of the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution. New York: United Nations, 2005.
Soroos, Marvin S. The Endangered Atmosphere: Preserving a Global Commons. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997.
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Handbook for the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution and Its Protocols. New York: United Nations, 2004.