Summit focuses on chemical usage

By Julia Wheeler
BBC Gulf correspondent

More than 85,000 chemicals are used around the world

Environment ministers from around the world are meeting in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to discuss the rising use of man-made chemicals.

The United Nations-backed conference, the largest yet, is expected to issue a declaration on the way chemicals should be managed around the world.

The UN believe 1,500 new chemicals are produced a year.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is due to accept one of the world's most prestigious environmental prizes there.

Increasing chemicals

When the jury of the US$1m Zayed Prize for the Environment was considering this year's winners, it unanimously opted for someone who, it said, had "catalysed political public opinion into understanding the environment as a fundamental pillar of sustainable development".

In other words, someone who has put the environment on the political agenda.

It is perhaps fitting then that Kofi Annan is to accept the prize during the largest-ever gathering of environment ministers.

The International Conference on Chemicals Management is meeting in Dubai to discuss the topic of managing chemicals and reducing their harmful effects.

According to UN figures, around 1,500 new chemicals are produced each year, adding to the 80,000 the world currently produces.

And those figures are only going to rise.

It is estimated that over the next 15 years there will be an 85% increase in the manufacture of chemicals globally.

Many, says the UN, have not been tested fully or are insufficiently labelled, particularly in the developing world.

The UN is hoping to get agreement on a new approach to managing chemicals, so minimising their effects on human health.

Signing an agreement is one thing, but the UN and its leader know it will take further leadership to put that agreement into practice.