Good-Bye to Leaded Petrol
Offshoot from Sofia
The Danish Ministry of Environment and Energy is chairing this Task Force Group, which is an outcome of the third 'Environment for Europe' Ministerial Conference in Sofia in 1995. At the Sofia Conference, an initiative was also taken by six Central and Eastern European countries to co-operate on reduction of air pollution, including promotion of unleaded petrol, as well as significant reduction in sulphur and particulate emissions. As part of the so-called ÔSofia Initiatives' the initiative on Local Air Pollution is being chaired by the Bulgarian Ministry of Environment with secretariat at the Regional Environmental Center in Hungary. The initiative promotes co-operation among air pollution control experts at national and municipal levels in developing and implementing activities for measurable improvements in air quality in highly polluted urban areas. The initiative is open for all participants in the 'Environment for Europe' process. The planning of the joint European phase-out plan for leaded petrol to be undertaken by the Task Force Group is carried out in a close co-operation with the Sofia Initiative on Local Air Pollution.
Ongoing Activities
A great number of actions have already been taken to reduce the consumption of leaded petrol in Europe. In most Northern European countries petrol is today practically free of lead. All new cars are equipped with catalytic converters and are only fuelled by unleaded petrol. At the same time, the petrol companies have developed a lubricant for the engine to replace lead, so that also older cars can be fuelled by unleaded petrol. Altogether without any problems for the car owners. In some countries, tax incentives have resulted in a reduction of unleaded petrol prices compared to the price of leaded petrol. This again has encouraged the petrol companies to develop applicable alternatives. An EU Directive proposal suggests that by year 2000 all lead should be removed from the petrol of the EU countries. Steps have also been taken by many Central and Eastern European countries to reduce the use of leaded petrol, and, for instance, in the Slovak Republic leaded petrol has been completely abolished.
Joint Efforts and Plans
The work of the Task Force Group is to unify already existing initiatives and try to establish new joint efforts and plans. The final plan prepared by the Group should lay down a deadline for the total phase-out of leaded petrol in Europe, and at the Aarhus Conference it is the intention to commit the environment ministers to observe this deadline. The deadline should be further negotiated among the countries, for even though there seems to be a general trend all over Europe to phase out leaded petrol, the major part of the petrol in several Southern and Eastern European countries contains lead. In addition, it has proved difficult to obtain exact information on the lead content in petrol in the CIS countries. It seems as if the problems are greater in these countries.
Updated: Cannot perform flastmod(): Win32 Error Code = 2
CET
