Date: 11-Feb-10
Country: FINLAND
Author: Brett Young
 

Non-Executive Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell and Nokia, Jorma Ollila, speaks at the Baltic Sea Action Summit in Helsinki February 10, 2010.
Photo: Markku Ulander/Lehtikuva

HELSINKI - Regional political leaders on Wednesday underlined their commitment to clean up the Baltic Sea, which has been polluted for decades and is set to become a major oil and gas thoroughfare in the coming years.

"Today some of the richest and most environmentally conscious countries on earth live on the shores of one of the world's most polluted seas," Finnish President Tarja Halonen said. "It is clear that something has to be done - and quickly."

The Baltic remains for adjacent countries a major destination for untreated sewage and many chemical pollutants, including agricultural waste that causes blooms of algae that choke marine life.

It also faces rising sea traffic. The Russian port of Ust Luga is being expanded and will eventually handle almost one-fifth of Russia's total petroleum products exports as the country seeks more European business.

And construction of the Nord Stream pipeline, which will pump 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Russia to Germany when completed in 2012, is expected to start this year. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was among the summit's participants.

"Traffic here on the Baltic sea is really heavy. We are joking that we will very soon put traffic lights (up)," Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said. "Cargo volumes are increasing very rapidly."

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg noted that 15 percent of the world's cargo traffic passes through the Baltic Sea, while Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said 90 percent of all trade in the region is transported by sea.

"Economic activity is vital to the prosperity of the region, but we must also address the consequences of years of environmental neglect," Stoltenberg said.

PUTIN SAYS NORD STREAM SAFE

Putin highlighted actions Russia was taking to clean up the Baltic, including improving water treatment plants in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad.

He said that Nord Stream, which only needs approval from Finnish environmental authorities to start building, would meet strict environmental criteria. The Finnish decision on the pipeline is due later this week.

"I am convinced that such major (environmental) studies, major investments in studies, have never been done in the history of the Baltic Sea," Putin said through a translator.

"I believe that Nord Stream will be environmentally safe and reliable and a very good supplier of natural gas to Europe and make our continent more stable," he said.

Organizers said ahead of the summit they had received close to 140 commitments from companies, NGOs and individuals on ways to help clean up the Baltic.

While there were no big political commitments made on Wednesday, many countries stressed they would seek to reduce or eliminate the flow of nutrients into the Baltic, for example by banning the use of phosphates in dishwasher detergents.

Finland said it will intensify work on cleaning up the sea around its archipelago by 2020, focusing in particular on reducing the nutrient run-off from the agricultural sector.

The summit was organized to spur action following the 2007 meeting of the Helsinki Commission, whose mandate is to protect the Baltic marine environment, where regional countries agreed to cut pollution and restore the Baltic's "good ecological status" by 2021.