Decision Ex.I/4. Conditions for granting and report ing critical-use exemptions for methyl

Bromide

Mindful of the principles set forth in the report 4 by the chair of the informal consultation on methyl bromide held in Buenos Aires on 4 and 5 March 2004, namely, fairness, certainty and confidence, practicality a nd flexibility, and transparency,

Recognizing that technically and economically feasible alternat ives exist for most uses of methyl bromide,

Noting that those alternatives are not always technically and economically feasible in the circumstances of nominations,

Noting that Article 5 and non-Article 5 Parties have made substantial progress in the adoption of effective alternatives,

Mindful that exemptions must comply fully with decision IX/ 6 and are intended to be limited, temporary derogations from the phase-out of methyl bromide,

Recognizing the desirability of a transparent presentation of d ata on alternatives to methyl bromide to assist

the Parties to understand better the critical-use v olumes and to gauge progress on and impediments to the transition from methyl bromide,

Resolved that each Party should aim at significantly and pro gressively decreasing its production and consumption of methyl bromide for critical uses wit h the intention of completely phasing out methyl bromide as soon as technically and economically fea sible alternatives are available,

Recognizing that Parties should revert to methyl bromide only a s a last resort, in the event that a technically and economically feasible alternative to methyl bro mide which is in use ceases to be available as a re sult of de-registration or for other reasons,

1. That each Party which has an agreed critical use under the present decision should submit available

information to the Ozone Secretariat before 1 Febru ary 2005 on the alternatives available, listed acco rding to their pre-harvest or post-harvest uses and the p ossible date of registration, if required, for each alternative; and on the alternatives which the Part ies can disclose to be under development, listed ac cording to their pre-harvest or post-harvest uses and the l ikely date of registration, if required and known, for those alternatives, and that the Ozone Secretariat shall be requested to provide a template for that informa tion and to post the said information in a database entitled “Methyl Bromide Alternatives” on its web site;

2. That each Party which submits a nomination for t he production and consumption of methyl bromide for years after 2005 should also submit information lis ted in paragraph 1 to the Ozone Secretariat to incl ude in its Methyl Bromide Alternatives database and that a ny other Party which no longer consumes methyl

bromide should also submit information on alternati ves to the Secretariat for inclusion in that databa se;

3. To request each Party which makes a critical-use nomination after 2005 to submit a national management strategy for phase-out of critical uses of methyl bromide to the Ozone Secretariat before 1 February 2006. The management strategy should aim, among other things: (a) To avoid any increase in methyl bromide consump tion except for unforeseen circumstances; (b) To encourage the use of alternatives through th e use of expedited procedures, where possible, to develop, register and deploy technically and econom ically feasible alternatives; (c) To provide information, for each current pre-ha rvest and post-harvest use for which a nomination i s planned, on the potential market penetration of new ly deployed alternatives and alternatives which may be used in the near future, to bring forward the time when it is estimated that methyl bromide consumptio n for such uses can be reduced and/or ultimately eliminat ed; (d) To promote the implementation of measures which ensure that any emissions of methyl bromide are minimized;(e) To show how the management strategy will be imp lemented to promote the phase-out of uses of methyl

bromide as soon as technically and economically fea sible alternatives are available, in particular des cribing the steps which the Party is taking in regard to su bparagraph (b) (iii) of paragraph 1 of decision IX/ 6 in respect of research programmes in non-Article 5 Par ties and the adoption of alternatives by Article 5 Parties;

4. To request the Meeting of the Parties to take in to account information submitted pursuant to paragr aphs 1 and 3 of the present decision when it considers p ermitting a Party to produce or consume methyl brom ide for critical uses after 2006;

5. To request a Party that has submitted a request for a critical use exemption to consider and implem ent, if feasible, Technology and Economic Assessment Panel and Methyl Bromide Technical Options Committee recommendations on actions which a Party may take t o reduce critical uses of methyl bromide;

6. To request any Party submitting a critical-use n omination after 2004 to describe in its nomination the methodology used to determine economic feasibility in the event that economic feasibility is used as a criterion to justify the requirement for the critic al use of methyl bromide, using as a guide the econ omic criteria contained in section 4 of annex I to the p resent report;

7. To request each Party from 1 January 2005 to pro vide to the Ozone Secretariat a summary of each cro p or post-harvest nomination containing the following information: (a) Name of the nominating Party; (b) Descriptive title of the nomination; (c) Crop name (open field or protected) or post-har vest use; (d) Quantity of methyl bromide requested in each ye ar; (e) Reason or reasons why alternatives to methyl br omide are not technically and economically feasible ;

8. To request the Ozone Secretariat to post the inf ormation submitted pursuant to paragraph 7 above, categorized according to the year in which it was r eceived, on its web site within 10 days of receivin g the nomination;

9. To request the Technology and Economic Assessmen t Panel: (a) To identify options which Parties may consider for preventing potential harmful trade of methyl bromide stocks to Article 5 Parties as consumption is reduced in non-Article 5 Parties and to publish its

evaluation in 2005 to enable the Seventeenth Meetin g of the Parties to decide if suitable mitigating s teps

are necessary; (b) To identify factors which Article 5 Parties may wish to take into account in evaluating whether th ey should either undertake new accelerated phase-out c ommitments through the Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of the Montreal Protocol or seek cha nges to already agreed accelerated phase-outs of methyl bromide under the Multilateral Fund; (c) To assess economic infeasibility, based on the methodology submitted by the nominating Party under paragraph 6 above, in making its recommendations on each critical-use nomination. The report by the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel should be made with a view to encouraging nominating Parties to adopt a common approach in assessing the economic feasibility of alternatives; (d) To submit a report to the Open-ended Working Gr oup at its twenty-sixth session on the possible nee d for methyl bromide critical uses over the next few years, based on a review of the management strategi es submitted by Parties pursuant to paragraph 3 of the present decision; (e) To review critical-use nominations on an annual basis and apply the criteria set forth in decision IX/6 and of other relevant criteria agreed by the Partie s; (f) To recommend an accounting framework for adopti on by the Sixteenth Meeting of the Parties which ca n be used for reporting quantities of methyl bromide produced, imported and exported by Parties under th e terms of critical-use exemptions, and after the end of 2005 to request each Party which has been grant ed a critical-use exemption to submit information togeth er with its nomination using the agreed format; (g) To provide, in consultation with interested Par ties, a format for a critical-use exemption report, based on the content of annex I to the present report, for a doption by the Sixteenth Meeting of the Parties, an d torequest each Party which reapplies for a methyl bro mide critical-use exemption after the end of 2005 t o

submit a critical-use exemption report in the agree d format; (h) To assess, annually where appropriate, any crit ical-use nomination made after the end of 2006 in t he light of the Methyl Bromide Alternatives database i nformation submitted pursuant to paragraph 1 of the present decision, and to compare, annually where ap propriate, the quantity, in the nomination, of meth yl bromide requested and recommended for each pre-harv est and post-harvest use with the management strategy submitted by the Party pursuant to paragra ph 3 of the present decision; (i) To report annually on the status of re-registra tion and review of methyl bromide uses for the appl ications reflected in the critical-use exemptions, including any information on health effects and environmenta l acceptability; (j) To report annually on the status of registratio n of alternatives and substitutes for methyl bromid e, with particular emphasis on possible regulatory actions that will increase or decrease dependence on methyl bromide; (k) To modify the handbook on critical-use nominati ons for methyl bromide to take the present decision and other relevant information into account, for su bmission to the Sixteenth Meeting of the Parties.