Regulation and monitoring of pollution: Difference between revisions

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To protect the [[environment (biophysical)|environment]] from the adverse effects of pollution, many nations worldwide have enacted legislation to regulate various types of pollution as well as to mitigate the adverse effects of [[pollution]]. At the local level, regulation usually is supervised by [[Environmental agency|environmental agencies]] or the broader [[public health system]]. Different jurisdictions often have different levels [[Environmental law|regulation and policy choices]] about pollution. Historically, polluters will lobby governments in less economically developed areas or countries to maintain lax regulation in order to protect [[industrialisation]] at the cost of human and [[environmental health]].

The modern environmental regulatory environment has its origins in the United States with the beginning of industrial regulations around Air and Water pollution connected to industry and mining during the 1960s and 1970s.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Oppenheimer |first=Michael |date=2003-10-01 |title=Atmospheric Pollution: History, Science, and Regulation |url=https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1629008 |journal=Physics Today |volume=56 |issue=10 |pages=65–66 |doi=10.1063/1.1629008 |issn=0031-9228}}</ref>

Because many of pollutants have trans-boundary impacts, the UN and other treaty bodies have been used to regulate pollutants that circulate as [[air pollution]], [[water pollution]] or [[Global waste trade|trade in wastes]]. Early international agreements were successful at addressing Global Environmental issues, such as [[Montreal Protocol|Montreal Protocol,]] which banned Ozone depleting chemicals in 1987, with more recent agreements focusing on broader, more widely dispersed chemicals such as [[persistent organic pollutant]]<nowiki/>s in the [[Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants]] created in 2001, such as [[PCBs]], and the [[Kyoto Protocol]] in 1997 which initiated colllaboration on addressing greenhouse gases to [[mitigate climate change]].

==Regulation and monitoring by region==