Merging the EU acidification strategy: Evaluating the 1999 Gothenburg protocol to abate acidification, eutrophication and ground-level ozone

Since the Cold War détente, transboundary air pollution (TAP) has been on the pan-European diplomatic agenda. Under the Convention of Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) - the diplomatic framework for international cooperation on transboudary air pollution - eight protocols have been adopted through a science-driven and evolutionary negotiation process. The latest protocol to the LRTAP, 'The 1999 Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-Level Ozone', signed in 1999 in Gothenburg, Sweden, sets out new regulations - national emission ceilings (NECs) and technology-based regulations - on sulphur oxides (SO₂), nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and ammonia (NH₃), with 'flexibility' clauses. The NECs are established on a scientific basis that enables the genotiators to take the complex inter-relationships and intra-relationships among multi-environmental problems and multiple pollutants directly into account through quantified costs and benefits.¹ In order to evaluate and quantify the costs and benefits of regulating the pollutants, an 'integated assessment' is applied to multi-environmental problems and multiple pollutants, so that staet-of-the art understanding of the eco-systems can be fully reflected in the negotiation process. Since this permits the negotiators to take the multi-effect of regulating multi-pollutants into consideration, the protocol is called the Multi-Effect, Multi-Pollutant Protocol (MEMPP). This article first analyses the negotiation process of the MEMPP and evaluates its outcomes. It then considers the scientific background to the Protocol, with special reference to the key scientific tools of integrated assessment, upon which the MEMPP draws heavily. Finally, it discusses the merging of the LRTAP regime and the EUAS, and its future implications.