The broadest participation ever in a meeting of stakeholders on chemicals management has ended in an agreement to step up efforts to safeguard people and the environment.

The fourth session of the International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM4) focused on five issues requiring urgent action – lead in paint, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, chemicals in products, nanotechnology and hazardous substances in the lifecycle of electronics and electrical products.

Delegates at the meeting went further and agreed that environmentally-persistent pharmaceutical pollutants should now be added as an emerging policy issue. After posing a particular risk to children and causing health problems and deaths worldwide, a decision was also taken to ensure that national legislation on the use of highly hazardous pesticides is strengthened and that ecological alternatives are promoted.

Work plan agreed

Seeking out alternatives to toxic chemicals is “a Sisyphean effort,” admitted UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner ahead of the meeting. Of the estimated 100 000 or more chemicals on the market today, the safety of only a fraction has been thoroughly evaluated.

Yet a joint work plan was agreed at ICCM4 which aims to ensure chemicals are used and produced in ways that lead to the minimisation of significant adverse effects on human health and the environment by 2020, in line with the so-called Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and contributing to the new Sustainable Development Goals.

“The time to act is now,” ICCM4 President Dr Richard Lesiyampe, Principal Secretary in the Kenyan Ministry of Environment and Nautral Resources, told journalists following the meeting.

ICCM governs the Strategic Approach to Chemicals Management (SAICM), whose Secretariat is provided by UNEP and whose aim is to bring together a broad range of stakeholders to address chemicals and waste issues not covered by legally-binding treaties. It saw representatives from business, more than 50 civil society organisations and others sit together in Geneva as one during ICCM4.

Some $110 million has been pledged for projects supporting the safe management of chemicals, including funding for 100 developing countries – which as a whole are expected to consume 33% of chemicals produced by 2020. The global plan of action will now involve concrete interventions, application of legal instruments and emerging policy issues addressed.

“Chemicals are a part of our daily lives we cannot do without. That’s precisely why we need to fundamentally rethink how they are developed and managed for industrial and commercial use,” Mr Steiner underlined.

The meeting, held in Geneva from 28 September to 2 October, was attended by over 800 delegates and marked the tenth anniversary of SAICM. It included a high-level segment attended by ministers, Heads of Agencies and Organisations, Chief Executive Officers and Major Groups and Stakeholders from across the private sector.

A preparatory briefing was also organised for Permanent Representations ahead of the conference at the International Environment House on 8 September.

For further details on ICCM4 please contact lisa-maria.hadeed@unep.org and brenda.koekkoek@unep.org

The Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) was in the margins of the UN General Assembly recognised as a mechanism needed to support fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goals.

During the meeting, which was organised by UNEP together with UNDP and the Government of Germany, some new countries expressed an interest in receiving support from the PAGE programme.

Investments and policy moves needed for the shift to a Green Economy were explored by a high-level panel during the event. The panel included UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, UNDP Assistant Administrator Magdy Martínez-Solimán, Edna Molewa, Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, South Africa; the Norwegian Minister Climate and Environment Tine Sundtoft and Klaus Rudischhauser, Deputy Director General at the European Commission’s DG Development and Cooperation.

“The big challenge is to achieve, as quickly as possible, the paradigm shift to an economic development that finally respects the ecological boundaries of our planet and at the same time eliminates poverty and hunger,” said Barbara Hendricks, the German Minister for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety.

As well as PAGE, the Poverty-Environment initiative run by UNEP and UNDP was recognised as a tool for ensuring that policy making promotes macroeconomic reform and collaboration among different sectors.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner also launched a synthesis report titled ‘Uncovering pathways towards an inclusive Green Economy: a summary for leaders,’ building on UNEP’s work on the topic so far.

For more details please write to chiara.moroni@unep.org

Preparing to help implement the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UN organisations in Geneva held a policy dialogue and established new tools for ensuring they can be tracked and implemented.

A special flag made up of pictograms representing each of the goals was also raised before staff at the city’s International Environment House on 25 September, on the day when the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted at the UN summit in New York.

New challenge

A policy dialogue held on 2 September in conjunction with the GEPP Executive Summer School 2015 discussed the challenge of implementing and monitoring the new goals while political commitment and financial resources are problematic.

Making the goals understandable to citizens, ensuring no country gets left behind, the importance of the private sector and the challenge of involving civil society were explored during the panel debate.

Opening the discussion, UNEP Regional Director Jan Dusik noted how half of the SDGs have a direct environmental focus and include 86 specific targets related to environmental sustainability overall.

The panel included Swiss Ambassador Michael Gerber, Carina Larsfälten - Managing Director of Global Policy and Strategic Partnerships at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development - and Arthur Dahl, President of the International Environment Forum.

UNEP live

A new portal for helping implement the SDGs has furthermore been launched on the UNEP Live platform.

The portal is designed to house indicators in order to track progress towards the goals and contains information from a wide range of sources tracking environmental trends and stakeholder perceptions.

For more information on the new SDGs please click here or contact isabelle.valentiny@unep.org.
For more details on UNEP Live contact tomas.marques@unep.org.

To read more on the policy dialogue event please click here or write to diana.rizzolio@unep.org

Government and other leaders have pledged to continue the fight against the illegal trade in wildlife at an event held by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) together with UNDP, UNODC and others.

Two specific targets to end poaching and trafficking of protected species of fauna and flora, as well as to boost the capacity of local communities to pursue sustainable livelihoods, are now included within SDG goal number 15.

At a high-level event taking place alongside the General Assembly in New York’s Central Park Zoo, UNDP Administrator Helen Clark described the illegal trade in wildlife as “a development, environmental and security challenge”.

The adoption of the SDGs containing the specific targets signals “a powerful expression of political determination to end these highly destructive crimes,” said CITES Secretary General John Scanlon.

The event was held by the Governments of Gabon and Germany, the CITES Secretariat, UNDP, UNODC and the World Bank, in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society, and other civil society partners.

To learn more on efforts against the illegal wildlife trade please write to yuan.liu@cites.org.