All the Worst Offenders

NO. 3, OCTOBER 2000 MARITSA POWER PLANT, BULGARIA. © MICHAEL REINHARD MARITSA POWER PLANT, SO2 EMISSIONS All the worst offenders TOPPING THE LIST of the 100 great- from large installations have de- data has meant that plants in Rus- est emitters of sulphur to the atmos- clined markedly in the intervening sia, Ukraine, and Turkey have had phere in Europe are two large coal- period, it is also clear that they are to be omitted from the list. There is fired power stations in Bulgaria. To- still far from negligible. According however another list, in the report on gether they let out nearly 600,000 to the latest figures, the 100 largest the survey, in which plants from those tons of sulphur dioxide a year as emitters were still pouring out 8 countries are ranged among the much as the combined total from all million tons of sulphur dioxide a year, worst hundred. the following countries: Austria, corresponding to 40 per cent of the The data base that was built up Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the total from all sources on land in in the course of the survey includes Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Europe in 1997. some 3000 large emitters. These The figures come from the latest It may be noted that 81 of the 3000 let out at least 15 million tons 1 survey of emission sources made by plants on the list are power stations, of SO2 a year, or about a three quar- Mark Barrett of SENCO consultants and that all of them are coal-fired ters of all the emissions from land- at the instance of the Swedish NGO except for the Balti and Eesti plants based sources in Europe. In revising Secretariat on Acid Rain. This is an in Estonia, which burn oil-shale. The the list, Barrett has had access to the updated version of a previous sur- rest are mainly smelters and refin- IEAs (International Energy Agen- vey made in the early nineties. eries. cys) new data base for coal-fired Although it is evident from com- Although the survey covers essen- plants, for the years from 1995 to parison of the two that the emissions tially the whole of Europe, inadequate Continued on page 4 A NEWSLETTER FROM THE SWEDISH NGO SECRETARIAT ON ACID RAIN EDITORIAL is a newsletter from the Swedish NGO Sec- retariat on Acid Rain, whose primary aim Past and future is to provide information on the subjects of acid rain and the acidification of the environment. NOW WE ARE into a new century. ence was the formation of the Swed- Anyone interested in these problems is During the last ten or fifteen years ish NGO Secretariat on Acid Rain in invited to contact the secretariat. All re- quests for information or material will be the idea that something must be January of the following year, and dealt with to the best of our ability. Acid done to save the environment has the start of Acid News. News is distributed free of charge. sunk into peoples consciousness in It was a number of events during In order to fullfill the purpose of Acid most parts of the industrialized a few years at the end of the seven- News, we need information from every- world. In Europe and North America ties and the beginning of the eight- where – so if you have read or heard about at least air pollution has become a ies that really laid the foundation for something that might be of general inter- general subject of conversation. Al- the work of improving air quality est, please write or send a copy to: though what most immediately that is now going on. It may there- The Swedish NGO Secretariat on Acid Rain Box 7005, S-402 31 Göteborg, Sweden comes to mind in this connection is fore be worth considering in retro- probably car exhausts and bad urban spect: What was the state of knowl- Tel: +46-31-711 45 15. Fax: 711 46 20 air, people are also starting to become edge at that time, and what was E-mail: [email protected] aware of the damaging effects, for in- known or merely surmised. What Internet: www.acidrain.org stance, of ozone at ground level. sort of forecasts had been made of Editor: Christer Ågren This was not so in the summer of the trend, for instance, of emissions. Published by: The Swedish Society for 1980, when four Swedish environ- What was activating political moves, Nature Conservation mentalist groups got together to then and later. What were environ- Printed by Williamssons Offset, Solna, on work out a way of spreading informa- mentalists expectations then, and paper not bleached with chlorine. tion about air pollution in general and how have they altered over the ISSN 0281-5087 the resulting acidification in particu- years. THE SECRETARIAT lar the latter, then, twenty years Most interesting of course will be The Secretariat has a board comprising ago, being practically unheard of, at to see what advances have been in one representative from each of the follow- any rate outside Norway, Sweden, and the course of these twenty years. But ing organizations: Friends of the Earth Sweden, the Swedish Anglers’ National Canada. Although some thirty coun- it will also be important to try and Association, the Swedish Society for Na- tries had indeed, already in 1979, determine why some activities and ture Conservation, the Swedish Youth signed a convention for dealing with measures have been more success- Association for Environmental Studies cross-border airborne pollution, it ful than others. and Conservation, and the World Wide was clear that few of them realized There are still government offi- Fund for Nature Sweden. the extent of the problem and were cials, scientists, environmental jour- The essential aim of the secretariat is to promote awareness of the problems asso- prepared to act. It was only in Scan- nalists, and environmentalists who ciated with air pollution, and thus, in part dinavia that it was generally agreed have been engaged all the time. Oth- as a result of public pressure, to bring that acidification could only be ers may have changed their main about the needed reductions in the emis- solved by reducing the emissions of occupations, yet still continue to sions of air pollutants. The aim is to have sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides maintain a concern for air quality. those emissions eventually brought down to levels – the so-called critical loads – that to the air all over northern and cen- It is their collective impressions that the environment can tolerate without suf- tral Europe. we want to recall in Acid News fering damage. In Europe, Norway and Sweden hence the special section in this is- In furtherance of these aims, the secretariat took the lead in trying to persuade sue chronicling the course of events operates by the West Germans and the British and giving personal views on devel- • Keeping under observation political in particular to restrict their emis- opments over the past two decades. trends and scientific developments. sions. In North America the Cana- We hope that these items will in • Acting as an information centre, prima- dians did the same vis-à-vis the their way give answers to the ques- rily for European environmentalist organi- United States. tions listed above, and so lead to zations, but also for the media, authori- In May 1981 the four Swedish more effective ways of attacking the ties, and researchers. environmentalist associations sent problems of air pollution and acidi- • Producing information material. out an invitation to their counter- fication. • Supporting environmentalist bodies in parts elsewhere to join them in a We intend to continue along this other countries in their work towards com- mon ends. European Conference on Acid Rain line in coming issues of Acid News, • Acting as coordinator of the interna- in Göteborg. The two main aims and invite contributions from all tional activities, including lobbying, of Eu- there were to provide information readers. We shall also be glad to hear ropean environmentalist organizations, as generally about acidification, and to what impressions they may have got for instance in connection with the meet- consider ways in which environmen- from the special section on pages 11- ings of the Convention on Long Range talists could cooperate to bring 18. Transboundary Air Pollution and policy initiatives in the European Union. about a reduction of harmful emis- CHRISTER ÅGREN sions. One outcome of this confer- • Acting as an observer at the proceedings involving international agreements for reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases. 2 ACID NEWS NO. 3, OCTOBER 2000 Depositions of oxidized On the sulphur coming from following ships. pages National ceilings 6 Parliament wanted to improve on the Commission’s proposals, but the Council of Ministers would rather weaken them. Unit: mg S/m2/yr LCPs 8 > 325 A compromise extending the directive to 225-325 existing plants was not considered good 125-225 enough by environmentalists. 25-125 < 25 Acidification 14-15 ACID IMPORTS A series of maps showing the situation from 1980 to 1995, reveal a marked im- In many countries most provement, but much more will have to be done if agreed goals are to be attained. comes from shipping Climate 19 Two German political scientists urge the SHIPPING HAS BECOME the largest be traced to emissions from ships in need for the EU to take the lead in get- single source of acid fallout over international trade. Around the ting countries to ratify the Kyoto Proto- many countries in Europe. North Sea, Denmark has the high- col, seeing that many are hanging back.

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