Halt in use of leaded gasoline touted
Algeria last to cease sales for cars; U.N. notes health, environment milestone
BERLIN — Leaded gasoline has finally reached the end of the road, the U.N. environment office said Monday, after the last country in the world where it was available halted the sale of the highly toxic fuel.
Algeria stopped providing leaded gas last month, prompting the U.N. Environment Program to declare the “official end” of its use in cars, which has been blamed for a variety of human health problems.
“The successful enforcement of the ban on leaded petrol is a huge milestone for global health and our environment,” the agency’s executive director, Inger Andersen, said in a statement.
Petroleum containing tetraethyl lead was first sold almost 100 years ago to increase engine performance. The compound was widely used as a fuel additive for decades until researchers discovered that it could cause heart disease, strokes and brain damage.
The U.N. agency said studies showed leaded gas caused measurable intellectual impairment in children and millions of premature deaths.
“The cost of environmental degradation is real,” said Andersen, citing what she described as a “very, very ballpark number” of $2.45 trillion in damage to the global economy prevented by the ban.
Janet McCabe, deputy administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said measurements showed blood lead levels “plummeted, literally, literally plummeted” after the fuel was banned in the United States.
“We know lead exposure is a serious issue that affects vulnerable people, especially children,” McCabe said. “We can’t allow these effects to persist, at home in the U.S. or elsewhere.”
Most rich nations started phasing out the fuel in the 1970s and 1980s, but it was still widely used in low- and middle-income countries until 2002, when the U.N. began a global campaign to abolish it.
The end of its usage globally will have positive implications for humans and all living creatures, the U.N. agency said. It’s also a major step forward in greening transport.
”Leaded fuel is the kind of mistake that humanity has been making at every level,” Andersen told reporters Monday. “It’s the kind of mistake that has led us to the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis and the crisis of pollution.”
The fuel has caused more exposure to lead than any other product worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Leaded gasoline contaminates air, dust, soil, drinking water and crops.
Leaded gas is still used in aviation fuel for small planes, an issue McCabe said the EPA was working with the Federal Aviation Administration to address.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the successful abolition of leaded gas, like the ban on ozone-depleting chemicals, showed the influence that international treaties could have on addressing environmental issues.
“We must now turn the same commitment to ending the triple crises of climate disruption, biodiversity loss and pollution,” he added.