Standards for Healthy Atmosphere Quality
Category: Environmental | Industries: All Business - Strong
The General Assembly,
Concerned by air pollutants, which can lead to damage to health, property, and environment, and understanding the inherent danger in leaving them unchecked, given that they can and often are spread across international borders by wind,
Recognizing previous attempts to promote sustainable atmospheric environments, but aware they do not address many pollutants that pose serious risk,
Believing that such air pollutants should be monitored and controlled, as they constitute an immense menace to the international community through their damage to people's health, property, wildlife, and environmental sustainability, and that the previously existing Atmospheric Chemistry Establishment (ACE) should responsible for them,
Hereby,
§ 1. Mandates that the Atmospheric Chemistry Establishment (ACE) regulates member states by:
- Setting annual caps, which shall be determined to be both reasonable to achieve and maximally healthy for both the residents of the state and its environment, for each member state’s and each non-member state’s anthropogenic emissions of the following pollutants:
- Particle Pollution
- Ground Level Ozone
- All Persistent Bioaccumulative Toxins
- All Volatile Organic Compounds
- Nitrogen Oxides
- Sulfur Dioxide
- Fining member states in proportion to any emissions in excess of their emission caps; all funds produced by these fines will be used by ACE to fulfill its duties, and any excess shall be given as grants for research and technology to combat the previously listed air pollutants,
- Instituting tariffs against those non-member states which do not meet the emission caps set by ACE, as well as member states which refuse to pay their own fines; the funds from these tariffs shall be used in the same manner as the fines,
§ 2. Tasks member states with:
- Monitoring the levels of the listed pollutants, through testing and observation, the results of which they will provide to ACE,
- Abiding by the fees tariffs mandated by ACE,
- An urging to promote acts which lead to a clean atmosphere among their populace, and to implement emissions trading schemes within their own economies, so as to help achieve the emissions caps set by ACE,
- An encouragement to attempt to peacefully persuade non-member states to follow emissions caps set specifically for them, and to act in international goodwill on the subject of air pollutants.
§ 3. Articulates that natural emissions will not be treated as emissions by ACE, in the case of this resolution.
OOC: I've never written, or attempted to write, any GA stuff before, so hopefully my lurking has prepared me well enough for this. When thinking about writing this, I looked into RL legislation about air quality and such, most heavily investigating the US's Clean Air Act. If you're curious to learn to more about this topic, and that act, these links are pretty useful:
- https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-08/documents/peg.pdf
- https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview
- https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/clean-air-act-requirements-and-history
- Particle pollution- these can enter the lungs and lead to respiratory problems, such as aggravating asthma,acute respiratory symptoms like coughing, reduction of lung functionality, and chronic bronchitis, they can also cause haze, resulting in reduced visibility, which can be problematic in some areas, such as nature reserves and national parks, finally, particle pollution dirties outside areas and buildings, leading to reduced cleanliness,
- Ozone- it aggravates asthma, causes lung inflammation, and damages forests and crops; the chemicals that most often lead to ground level ozone are volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), which are released by cars and many industrial plants
- Acid rain- causing damage to human health, property damage, environmental harm, and murky skies;
Also, I've never done any RP before, so please forgive me if I mess up with that somehow