Mining and Sustainable Development II - DTIE

Mining
on their budgets find it difficult to locate the funds
necessary to upgrade skills and acquire the analytical
and monitoring facilities necessary to apply
such instruments effectively.
...but problems remain and scarce
resources for environmental
protection have to be applied where
they are most effective
The concept of using trade measures to influence
environmental policies or achieve at least some
internalization of environmental costs is attractive
to many but has proved difficult to translate into
practice. The debate about trade and the environment
reflects legitimate concerns about the environmental
consequences of the ongoing
globalization process. However, trade measures
are blunt instruments and their application with a
view to promoting better environmental management
may give rise to new and worse problems
than the ones initially targeted. Moreover, it
should be realized that developing countries could
suffer unintended and unnecessary negative
impacts on their trade if such measures were to be
applied. Since international treaties are cumbersome
to negotiate and difficult to enforce, it may
be easier to counter unwanted consequences of
globalization through public opinion pressure,
directed at those governments and enterprises that
appear to disregard environmental impacts of
their policies and actions.
As far as minerals and metals are concerned, the
main item on the environmental trade agenda
now appears to be efforts to restrict the transport
or processing of certain materials that are deemed
to be hazardous. The Basel Convention is the best
known example of this trend, but proposals in the
same vein have been made in a number of international
fora. Proposals for such restrictions have
caused considerable concern in industry circles
since they appear to disregard the costs of restrictions,
which would have to be borne by industry.
Other serious concerns include the extent to
which the proposed restrictions are based on adequate
risk assessments and the limitations to international
trade that would be imposed as a result,
with the attendant economic inefficiencies. Most
importantly, it can be questioned whether those
types of restrictions, given their cost in terms both
of the creation of artificial scarcities and the need
for institutional frameworks charged with monitoring
and enforcement, constitute a cost-effective
way of reducing environmental damage.
One of the largest, if not the largest environmental
challenge facing the international mining
community today is posed by the many closed
mine sites in developing countries and countries
in transition which constitute major hazards for
the environment and where it is not possible to use
proceeds from production to finance a clean-up.
Many of the sites may result in considerable environmental
damage if left unattended. While the
need to rehabilitate these “orphan sites” is widely
recognized, it is also clear that the governments of
the countries concerned – unlike governments in
developed countries where this problem is being
dealt with – lack the financial means to do so and
that no other realistic solutions to the financing
problem have been found. In fact, the dimensions
of the financing problem are not even well known,
possibly because it is feared that any effort to arrive
at a cost estimate might lead to resignation rather
than action. So far, progress with clean-up has been
piecemeal and improvised, and there is no assurance
that the most serious situations in terms of
human health, ecological impact or economic
importance have been addressed on a priority
basis. The problem clearly has to be addressed in
the context of abandoned hazardous sites in general,
and it is to be hoped that institutional and
financial solutions can be found that permit an
elimination of these continuing dangers to the lives
and health of local populations. It is difficult to see
that any concrete results could be achieved
through international legislation. The only example
of a legal approach being used to deal with the
problem of “orphan sites”, the “Super Fund” in the
United States, has, according to all observers,
entailed very time consuming negotiations.
Doubts have also been voiced with regard to its
effectiveness and the equity of the outcomes. Thus,
governments and industry have to work together
to determine the size of the problem and identify
realistic rehabilitation methods, financing solutions
and a time schedule for rehabilitation. The
time schedule can be long, what is important is to
begin to approach the problem in a serious manner.
While the industry cannot be held collectively
responsible for the actions of some individual
companies, it does have the knowledge about the
methods that could be used to deal with the
“orphan sites” and it should be concerned about
the public impact of the problem. Therefore, the
industry may consider it to be in its own interest
to be a part of the solution to the problem of
orphan sites, rather than fostering the impression
that it is only a part of the problem.
A major change – the full implications of which
are difficult to sort out however – would be the
internalization of the environmental and resource
costs of energy production. While complete “full
cost pricing” of energy is neither likely to be introduced
rapidly, nor in the very near future, it
appears certain that steps in this direction will be
taken as the unsustainability of evident or hidden
subsidies to energy production and consumption
in the long term becomes more evident. The mining
and metals industry would be expected to be
one of the industries most affected by such a
change, given its intensive use of energy in all
forms. Even partial steps in this direction could
raise the price of metals and reduce their competitiveness
vis-à-vis other materials which might use
less energy. However, several of the substitutes are
also energy-intensive and this might serve to
diminish the impact. In addition, recycled metals
would be likely to become more competitive,
since their production tends to be less energyintensive
than the production of primary metals.
Increased recycling rates would therefore be a
probable outcome, which would be modified,
however, by limits to the economic availability of
scrap. For metals that have exhibited a fast growth
in consumption in recent years and/or are used in
long-lived products, the possible increase in recycling
rates may also be quite modest due to limited
physical availability of scrap. While the full
effects of changes to energy prices are difficult to
assess and are likely to vary significantly from one
mineral raw material to another, it is clear that
they will have effects on the way that minerals and
metals are produced and used and, by implication,
on environmental management in mining.
In conclusion, there are reasons to be optimistic
about the prospects of reducing the negative environmental
impacts of mining. However, in a
world characterized by increasingly tight government
budgets, it is important that all those who
take an interest in good environmental management
of mining help ensure that the scarce
resources available for this purpose are used in as
cost-effective a manner as possible and that the
main part of the resources are devoted to the problems
that have the largest potential or actual
impact on the health and safety of people.
Notes
1 The views expressed are those of the author and
do not necessarily represent the views of the UNC-
TAD secretariat
2 Over the period 1930-1980, only 0.25 per cent
of the total land area of the United States was used
for surface mining, disposal of wastes from surface
and underground mines, and disposal of wastes
from mineral beneficiation and further processing.
Some 47 per cent of the land affected by mining
and waste disposal had been reclaimed by the end
of that period (Johnson, J. and Paone, J. ‘Land
Utilisation and Reclamation in the Mining Industry,
1930-1980’, Bureau of Mines Circular 8862,
Washington, D.C., 1982)
3 “Base metal victims of environment assault”,
Metal Bulletin, London, 5 November 1992. While
the figure may appear enormous and is likely to be
overstated, it is worth pointing out that it corresponds
to less than 5 per cent of the value of world
non-fuel mineral production at about the same
time, in 1990 (UNCTAD: Handbook of world
Mineral Trade statistics 1990-1995 (UNC-
TAD/ITCD/ COM/2), New York and Geneva,
1997)
4 The Polluter Pays Principle, as adopted by
OECD countries, states that “the polluter should
bear the expenses of carrying out pollution prevention
and control measures decided by public
authorities to ensure that the environment is in an
acceptable state. In other words, the cost of these
measures should be reflected in the cost of goods
and services which cause pollution in production
and/or consumption.” (Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development: The Polluter
Pays Principle: Definition, Analysis,
Implementation, Paris, 1975)
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46 ◆ UNEP Industry and Environment – Special issue 2000