A diverse coalition of energy and environment stakeholders have agreed to support a US Environmental Protection Agency-sponsored initiative designed to reduce global urban air pollution, especially in developing countries.
EPA's "Clean Fuels and Vehicles Partnership" is a non-binding declaration that was due to be signed Sept. 3 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa (see related story, this issue). EPA said individual companies such as BP PLC, Honda Motor Co., and International Truck & Engine Corp. endorsed the partnership, which seeks to ban lead from gasoline and encourage low-sulfur fuels. The Natural Resources Defense Council also offered its support, although the World Resources Institute declined EPA's invitation to participate. The United Nations also lauded the proposal.
Trade associations, including the American Petroleum Institute, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, and the governments of Canada, Chile, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Italy also associated themselves with the EPA mission statement.
EPA proposal
EPA's statement pledged the following:
- Help developing countries to develop plans to complete the global elimination of leaded gasoline and start to phase down sulfur in diesel and gasoline fuels, concurrent with adopting cleaner vehicle requirements.
- Support the development and adoption of cleaner fuel standards and cleaner vehicle requirements by providing a platform for exchange of successful practices in developed and developing countries.
- Develop public outreach programs and awareness campaigns; adapt economic and planning tools for clean fuels and vehicles analyses in local settings; and support the development of enforcement and compliance programs.
- Foster key partnerships between government, industry, nongovernmental organizations, and other interested parties within a country and between countries to facilitate the implementation of cleaner fuel and vehicle commitments.
API position
Although API said it agreed in principle with the partnership's goals, it stressed in a separate statement Aug. 28 that its support was not meant to imply that the association fully agreed with EPA's playbook. In a letter to EPA Administrator Christine Whitman, API President Red Cavaney said that the agency should be careful not to endorse an international air pollution strategy that follows a one-size-fits-all approach.
"There is a need to clarify the meaning of overly broad statements that do not apply in all situations encountered in developing countries and on which there is not general agreement," Cavaney said.
The partnership, said API, should be guided by three basic principles: "Developing countries should utilize the science behind air pollution control, programs should have a sound scientific basis and be cost effective, and only successful programs should be recommended."
Some environmental groups and state pollution regulators, with the exception of NRDC, also were wary of EPA's effort, saying that without specific targets for clean air goals to be reached, the document was literally and figuratively a paper exercise.
