Tue, Sep 11, 2007 page2

• EPA minister Dang criticizes UN over snub to Taiwanese

  • By Shelley Shan / STAFF REPORTER
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  Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Minister Winston Dang (陳重信) yesterday asked the UN not to help China pollute the environment, after representatives from Taiwan were last week barred from entering a meeting of the Basel Convention.

  "I want to tell UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Deputy Secretary General Sha Zukang (沙祖康) that they should not act like Hitlers of environmental protection," he said.

  The convention, also known as the Basel Convention on Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, was created to prevent developed nations from exporting toxic waste to less developed nations.

  The convention's sixth open-ended working group meeting, was held in Geneva last week.

  Dang said representatives from Taiwan had participated in the meetings in past years but were denied admission this year. He suspected this was linked to Taiwan's recent bid for UN entry.

  Dang said that this could be the tip of the iceberg, as it might affect the EPA's participation in other environment-related meetings. Dang said the EPA is scheduled to join the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) and Stockholm Convention in December, as well as next week's Montreal Protocol.

  The administration sent a total of six representatives to the Basel Convention this year. Two of them returned to Taiwan early on Sunday and told reporters about the situation.

  Lai Ying-ying (賴瑩瑩), a senior specialist at the EPA's waste management department, said the convention was mainly attended by professionals to discuss the latest technology for handling hazardous waste.

  Lai said that the administration submitted an online application to the UN Secretariat before departing for the convention. To avoid sensitive political issues, the administration applied under the name of the Institute of Environment and Resource (IER), a non-governmental group that is partially supported by the EPA.

  Lai noted the Basel Secretariat in Geneva had also sent them a confirmation e-mail upon receipt of their application, telling representatives to bring a copy of the e-mail to the registration department to get badges.

  However, Lai said that the Taiwanese representatives were denied entry to the convention after they showed the registration officials their passports, and were told that there had been a change in regulations governing the admission of observers.

  Based on a report issued last Friday by the UN Environment Programme, the UN Security and Safety Section in Geneva had advised that representatives from Taiwan "could not be accredited to participate at the current session because their accreditation documents had been issued by Taiwan, which is not a Member State of the United Nations."

  The report said the Secretariat of the Basel Convention in Geneva "had been surprised" by the situation, as the rule had never been applied previously and Taiwan had made useful contributions on the issue of e-waste.
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