Report from the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development

In May 1994 Australia's Environment Minister, John Faulkner, and I missed each other by a day or so both in Washington DC where Mr Faulkner visited but not quite in time to speak himself at the International Lead Abatement Conference, to which he was invited, and in New York, where Mr Faulkner arrived soon after the discussions on lead were completed at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UN CSD).

I was one of three people chosen by AECLP from among the delegates of the International Lead Abatement Conference to take the conference conclusions to the CSD meeting, there to join with representatives from international environment groups in lobbying the CSD delegates from every country, to support proposals which would bring about positive lead abatement activities throughout the world, and specifically, the worldwide accelerated phase out of lead in petrol and food can solder.

Due to the total lack of input from the Australian representatives during the debate, despite my pleas, and to some confusion about how heavy a drain on the resources of the World Bank such a leaded petrol phase-out would be, the statement that was eventually passed by the delegates contained only general notions about lead abatement. Still, when you consider that not a single other toxin was mentioned individually in the agreed statements, and that no other specific action was debated, the exercise was not an entire waste of effort.§