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UN CSD lntersessional Meeting on Phasing Lead Out of Petrol
by Maria Rapuano and K W James
Rochow
Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning
The U.S. and Mexican governments co-hosted an International Workshop on
Phasing Lead Out of Gasoline on March 14-15, 1995 in Washington, D.C. The Workshop was
officially an intersessional technical meeting of the United Nations Commission on
Sustainable Development.
A primary objective of the Workshop was to allow countries to share strategies for the
successful phase out of leaded gasoline. Ministers (chiefly energy and the environment)
from over 20 countries were represented, as well as NG0s (including the Alliance) and the
private sector.
All attendees agreed -- and the technical and cost-benefit presentations
overwhelmingly confirmed -- that lead should be phased out of gasoline internationally.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it would follow up the
Workshop by carrying out several activities: produce and disseminate proceedings of the
Workshop; prepare a resolution based on themes developed in the Workshop for presentation
at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD); host meetings in Puerto Rico and
Mexico to focus on phasing out leaded gasoline in the Americas; marshal technical
resources under current EPA programs to assist in developing phase-out plans; and to
strongly urge the CSD at its forthcoming April meeting to become a central clearing-house
of information on the leaded gasoline issue.
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