Policy initiatives
At the international level there are a number of agreements, or conventions, that have been reached with the aim of regulating emissions of air pollutants.

The Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (the LRTAP Convention) was signed by some 30 countries in Europe and North America in 1979. It currently has 51 signatories and has been extended in eight protocols, the most recent being the so-called Gothenburg Protocol signed in 1999, which went into force in 2005.

For long time international shipping was a more or less unregulated source of air pollution. While pollutant emissions from land-based sources are gradually coming down, those from shipping show a continuous increase. An air pollution annex to the IMO’s MARPOL Convention entered into force in May 2005 and developments are also under way within the EU.  

Until the early nineties, European Union policy regarding air pollution tended to be fragmented. Today the work is more strategically oriented. A directive establishing emission ceilings for four air pollutants was adopted in 2001. That same year also saw the launch of the Clean Air For Europe Programme (CAFE), which in 2005 lead to the adoption of a thematic strategy on air pollution. The EU has also been a driving force in the international climate negotiations (see below). 

The basis of international policy for dealing with climate change is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was signed in 1992 and came into effect in 1994. It has been extended in the Kyoto Protocol, which came into effect in 2005. Negotiations on the next commitment period are currently ongoing. 

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Last modified: 17 March 2008.