At the end of August, governments, businesses, and civil society met in Bucharest, Romania, for the fourth meeting of the intersessional process considering the strategic approach and sound management of chemicals and waste beyond 2020 (IP4). Stakeholders met to continue their efforts to elaborate the future arrangements of a framework to promote chemical safety worldwide for consideration and adoption at the next International Conference on Chemicals Management session (ICCM-5). The session supported the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), work originally intended to conclude in 2020 but that is now ongoing.
The Urgency of Chemical and Waste Reforms
Highly hazardous pesticides, heavy metals, chemicals in plastic, endocrine disruptors, and other toxic substances are flooding the water, land, and air. According to a recent report by the UN special rapporteur on the environment, David Boyd, nine million people die prematurely annually from toxic chemicals and pollution. This year, scientists also revealed that the Earth’s threshold for pollutants has been breached, posing a severe threat to people and the natural world.
With global chemicals production and sales projected to double by 2030, existing multilateral environment agreements such as the Basel, Rotterdam, Stockholm, or Minamata Conventions, only cover a small portion of them. Officials and experts are now looking at developing an effective global mechanism to manage most chemicals safely. After almost two years of visual sessions and suspended negotiations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, delegates to the IP4 advanced their work on the outline for a future framework “Beyond 2020” on chemicals and waste to guide global efforts to achieve a toxic-free future.
Challenges of Chemical Financing
The question of financing chemical management activity has always been a contentious one and a staple of related international negotiations. Most discussions generally happen between “donor countries” who feel like they are already contributing to the financing and recipient countries — many of which are in the Global South — arguing that the resources available to address chemical management challenges are largely insufficient. Both parties are right — the last Global Environment Facility negotiations saw a significant increase in the chemical and waste resources portfolio which is still orders of magnitude below what Parties and civil society have identified as needed to implement the existing obligations. But this framing leaves aside the need to operationalize two key items. First, the polluter pays principle, which advances the idea that those who produce pollution should bear the costs of managing it to prevent damage to human health or the environment. And second, the second pillar of the integrated approach aims to mobilize the necessary resources to ensure that the ever-growing chemical industry is held accountable for the growing threat from chemicals and waste.
Three Key Developments in Bucharest
- Chemical financing
IP4 was the first time that delegates discussed practical ways to ensure that the chemicals industry pays its fair share for the management of health and environmental impacts of the products they produce, use, and trade market. The conversation was triggered by the African Group’s proposal for a globally coordinated fee of 0.05% on the sales of feedstock chemicals to provide the revenues for a stand-alone international fund to support developing countries in chemicals and waste management. For years, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), together with the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), have advocated for a coordinated chemical tax or fee on basic chemicals (with a base rate of 0.5%) in a similar proposal.
Despite initial progress, there is still much work to be done. New, adequate, predictable, and sustainable financing is necessary to achieve the ambition and commitments governments will set for an instrument addressing chemicals and waste management beyond 2020.
Recognizing and implementing the polluter pays principle as a key pillar for the success of a global framework could set a precedent for other international instruments currently being negotiated — including a plastics treaty. Negotiators of each instrument will face central questions of how to finance de-pollution, management, and transition activities.
- Widening issues of concern
One of the features of the ICCM is to call for appropriate action on emerging policy issues and to develop consensus on new “issues of concern.” The current list includes endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), nanomaterials (materials less than 100 nanometers), highly hazardous pesticides, lead in paint, and more. IP4 saw Parties progress in developing listing criteria to use for determining “new” issues of concern. Still, they failed to advance work on Emerging Policy Issues and Other Issues of Concern, which should include a broader number of hazardous chemicals and must be included in the final framework “Beyond 2022.”
- Sharpening the focus
Parties successfully consolidated elements of their negotiations into a single, unified document to serve as the basis for the next round of talks, bringing the ICCM5 agenda into sharper focus. The resulting IP4 “zero-draft” will serve as the basis for negotiations at the next meeting and covers the vision, scope, principles, strategic objectives, targets, institutional arrangements, implementing measures, financial considerations, and procedures for designating “issues of concern” for special attention and concerted action.
Photos by IISD/ENB Photographer Mike Muzurakis [on the left] and NGO partners [on the right]
Public Participation
Beyond policy developments, the IP4 marked the return of in-person negotiations after two years of virtual meetings. However, co-facilitators struggled to build on the outcomes of the previous two years of virtual meetings. Numerous delegations cautioned that due to the virtual nature of these prior meetings, there were many challenges — especially for those with connectivity problems and lack of access to adequate technology. And thus, it was difficult to accept the entirety of those outcomes.
This concern was amplified by the call from many to ensure broader participation of stakeholders from the developing world and different sectors and a better representation of youth, women, and nonbinary people to ensure transparency and ownership of the future outcome. In this context, the CIEL delegation was particularly excited to see the official recognition of the role of youths in the negotiations.
Delegates also recognized the importance of ensuring gender equality and the role of women as agents of change in all relevant aspects of the new instrument through the development and implementation of a gender action plan. Delegates are expected to agree on a final text at the next meeting early next year.
On the road to ICCM-5, Parties must remember that the new global chemicals and waste framework can only be successful if a broad range of stakeholders feels ownership. This can only be achieved by open, inclusive, transparent, participatory meetings.
Photos by IISD/ENB Photographer Mike Muzurakis
Looking Ahead
After five intense days of open and constructive negotiations, Parties agreed to suspend IP4 and reconvene in early 2023 in Nairobi, Kenya, or Geneva, Switzerland. The exact agenda and structure of the meeting are yet to be determined.
In that meeting, policymakers should not limit the conversation to strategic objective and targets. They must also work on indicators to support these targets. It is also essential that they uphold the important principles of prevention and precaution while simultaneously highlighting a human rights approach in achieving the sound management of chemicals and waste. The latter is especially critical following the UN General Assembly recognizing the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a human right.
Delegates at the resumed session must keep ambitions high and continue to work to deliver a text that includes a global plan to take on the global chemicals and waste crisis and to ensure a toxics-free future for healthy people and the environment.
Extensive coverage of what happened during the negotiations is available here.
Published on September 12th, 2022