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Sunday 10 Dec: Pollution Treaty Negotiations end in Success.

In an unexpected move the discussions over the treaty text took a dramatic turn for the better at 4am on Sunday morning.

After six solid days of diplomatic niceties and endless discussions with a minority of countries delaying the finalisation of the text the majority at the conference won out and the text for a strong treaty was born.

Full story

The treaty text is now finalised and will be signed at a diplomatic conference in Stockholm, Sweden in May 2001. Now we have a strong treaty text we will maintain the pressure on Governments and industry to ensure that the treaty is implemented correctly and is the first step on the road to a toxic free future.

We closed the week of cyberaction at the conference by constructing a wall of messages from around the world, each one demanding an end to persistent pollutants, around the exit of the meeting room. Perhaps political meetings really can be influenced by the voice of the public?

Read the messages sent by cyberactivists to the conference

For once the quote of the day came from the meeting:
"The war on persistent pollutants has begun" John Buccini, Chairman, speaking at the final press conference.

Friday 8th December:

Crunch time approaches - with only 24 hours till the scheduled end of the meeting the usual culprits such as the US and Australia continue to hold back the majority of countries from formulating a strong treaty to limit toxic pollution.

Full story and more Analysis....Paralysis giving an understandable view of the meeting.

Above you can see most of the delegates from certain countries who are doing their level best to protect the interest of dirty industries over the majority of countries striving to protect life from some of the most polluting chemicals on the planet.

Ironically they met right in front of the Greenpeace screen (see pic above) displaying messages from victims of toxic hotspots and concerned members of the public world wide.

You can view messages to these "bad guys" holding the world future to ransom and already sent.

Quote of the day came from one of our cyberactivists:
POPs = Pointless Organisational Profit
Tahlee Rouillon, Australia

Wednesday 6th December:

Today the Greenpeace cyberaction display at the meeting reached a total of around 1000 messages from people living in pollution hotspots in Thailand, Lebanon, Turkey, China and the Philippines. In addition to these powerful messages concerned citizens have also been sending messages via the Internet from a far a field as the Cayman Islands, South Korea and Peru.

Tuesday 5th December:

On a day dominated by discussions over the fine print of the treaty read the moving testimonies of victims of PVC waste pollution and Native Americans whose food is being contaminated by persistent pollutants. They appealed to the US Government in the meeting to stop undermining an effective treaty.

Monday 4th December:

We kicked off the day in Johannesburg with an action outside the venue to show delegates the effects of toxic pollution in hotspots around the globe. The black and white photos in the demonstration are of victims from toxic pollution hotspots.

Read the full press release.

Meeting report

Also in the days leading up to the conference and during the meeting Greenpeace has been visiting pollution hotspots and taking technology to the people to allow them to send messages directly to the delegates. Many of the people are directly affected by toxic pollution, especially POPs, and they are sending a powerful global message to encourage delegates to do what is right for the environment and human health and ban these terrible substances forever.

Below are some of the picture of these activities at toxic hotspots:

The Philippines

Turkey:



Thailand:



As well as messages from toxic hotspots we are also displaying here at the meeting, messages from concerned citizens around the globe.

All the news from INC4 in Bonn, Germany, March 2000.