High gold prices are driving up the use of toxic mercury in small-scale mining in developing nations, spreading a poison that can cause brain damage in children thousands of kilometres away, a UN study showed yesterday.
Negotiators from 120 nations will meet in Geneva next week for a final round of talks meant to agree on a treaty to reduce the use of mercury in gold mining, in which it helps separate gold from ore, and by coal-fired power stations.
A leap in the gold price to almost $1700 an ounce from $400 less than a decade ago has spurred a surge in small-scale gold mining, which employs up to 15million people, in South America, Africa and Asia, the UN Environment Programme said.
Workers risk acute poisoning and, released into the air, or washed into rivers and oceans, mercury emissions spread worldwide.
Mercury can harm the brain. Foetuses and infants are especially vulnerable.
"Exposing infants and mothers to mercury is a cruel and increasingly unnecessary risk," Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme, adding that there were cleaner alternatives to the use of mercury in mining.
"The very high gold price has ... brought more people, especially the poorest,'' into gold mining, he said.
Emissions of mercury from artisanal and small-scale gold mines more than doubled to 727t in 2010 compared to 2005 and now make up 35% of the global total of emissions.
Part of the surge is attributable to better data.
Eating fish is the main way in which mercury builds up in humans. It enters rivers and seas and accumulates as methylmercury in the bodies of fish, especially big predators such as swordfish, sharks, king mackerels, tuna and sea bass.
The report estimated that human emissions of mercury totalled almost 2000t in 2010, most of them from Asian nations, led by China.
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