Source: press
Justice for the environment as French Government takes back the Clemenceau
Paris, 15 February, 2006 -- Greenpeace today celebrated President
Jacques Chirac’s decision to call back the decommissioned toxic aircraft
carrier, the Clemenceau, to France from its journey to the ship-breaking
yards in Alang, India.
The ship left France on December 31, 2005, under a huge cloud of
controversy after Greenpeace and other organisations launched a campaign
to stop the Clemenceau’s export to India to be broken up because it
contains a toxic cocktail of asbestos, PCBs and heavy metals. Greenpeace
declared that the quantities of hazardous wastes still on board deemed
the shipment as illegal trade under the Basel Convention - the
international treaty that prohibits the export of toxic wastes from
developed nations to non-OECD countries.
“This is a huge victory for the environment, and for the campaign headed
up by Greenpeace and other organisations,” said Pascal Husting,
Greenpeace France Executive Director. “In today’s globalised world it is
vital that nations, such as France and India, co-operate to uphold
global justice and not shamelessly pass on their responsibility to those
in vulnerable areas of the planet”.
Yesterday, the government representative on the Council of State - the
French Supreme Court – recommended the suspension of the transfer of the
Clemenceau to India, pointing out the possibility that European law may
have been violated. President Chirac announced the final decision to
retrieve the aircraft carrier earlier today. Greenpeace also welcomes
Chirac's announcement that France will work with its partners to develop
a European infrastructure for decontaminating
decommissioned ships in Europe before eventually sending them for
scrapping to Asia.
The Clemenceau was one of the largest ships to be sent for scrap but
every year a vast decrepit armada bearing a dangerous cargo of toxic
substances including asbestos, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and
heavy metals, ends up in Asian ship breaking yards (Bangladesh, India,
China and Pakistan) where they are cut up using the crudest of methods -
taking a huge toll on human health and the local environment.
“The Clemenceau became the icon of toxic trade abuse between the
developed world and developing countries. With President Chirac’s
decision, it now becomes a sign of how Governments, when pressurized by
public opinion, can take corrective action,” said Martin Besieux,
Greenpeace International Toxics Campaigner. “This incident should set
the precedent not just for ship-breaking, but for all toxic trade.”
Greenpeace is an independent campaigning organisation that uses
non-violent creative confrontation to expose global environmental
problems to force solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful
future.
Source: press
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