"It is totally unacceptable that the relatively paltry resources of the Multilateral Fund are being squandered on substances which will exacerbate our atmospheric crisis when environmentally safer technologies for meeting human needs are available in nearly all sectors," said Mr. John Mate, representative of Greenpeace International. "This is an example of industrialized countries promoting technologies in developing countries which will soon be considered as obsolete in their home markets, due to their use of substances which are to be phased-out or limited under the terms of the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols."

Science has established a firm link between global warming and prolonged ozone layer depletion. It is estimated that global warming will delay the beginning of the recovery of the ozone layer by at least 20 years, resulting in significant increases in dangerous ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth.

The United States, which produces over 40% of the world's methyl bromide (a powerful depleter of the ozone layer, destroying ozone 50 times more aggressively than chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) pound for pound), moved to strike language that would have led to limits on this exemption. Delegates argued that the chemical is needed to stop the invasion of foreign pests that travel in shipping pallets, such as a Chinese beetle that is devouring trees in Chicago and New York. A U.S. delegate in Cairo said, "The QPS is sacred."

"The U.S. delegation has used the Asian Longhorned Beetle crisis to justify a completely unnecessary loophole in national and international law that ensures a long-term market for the methyl bromide industry," said Ms. Jessica Vallette, representative of Friends of the Earth International. "The U.S. Department of Agriculture has admitted that effective and safer alternatives exist to combat the invasion of foreign pests."

The Montreal Protocol currently does nothing to prevent the entry of any new ozone depleting substances into the global marketplace. Three major methyl bromide producers - Great Lakes Chemical, Albemarle, and Dead Sea Bromine - have begun marketing two new ozone depleting substances (n-propyl bromide and chlorobromomethane). While the Parties decided to "discourage" the promotion of chlorobromomethane, they failed to place any moral force behind the need to limit the use of n-propyl bromide. This meeting agreed only to study the problem for the next two years.

Many factories in Europe, the Americas, and Asia are churning out CFCs at a rate more than double that originally predicted by Protocol policy-makers. At the same time, old CFC-dependent equipment unwanted in Europe and N. America is pouring into developing countries.

"The death of the CFC industry is taking much longer than the policymakers had assured us," said Mr. Jim Vallette, representative of Ozone Action. "Ironically, Western companies, which are producing over 30,000 tons of CFCs a year, and are dumping hundreds of thousands of old refrigerators and air conditioners in developing countries, are trying to blame the Chinese and Indians for the problem they continue to perpetuate."