UNEP Basel, Roterdam, Stockholm Convention Virtual Presser 30 July 2021

I hope everybody can hear me.

It looks like you probably can't see me.

I look like I'm scrambled up.

My name is Charlie Avis, and I'm public information officer for the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions.

Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon for the press conference of the closure of our 2021 Triple Cops, also known as the meetings of the conferences of parties to the bars or Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions.

Unfortunately, Rolf Paella is having to remain in the plenary session right now, which is continuing.

So we have a couple of points of information to to give you before we start the press conference, which otherwise should run according to schedule and according to plan.

And that's firstly that not all of the decisions that we hope or expected to be taken today, they have been agreed so far this afternoon.

A couple have, but one important one has not.

So we'll be giving you details of those in a in just a moment.

And just to note that if it's still the case that by the end of this press conference, we still have not reached agreement on on all of the decisions that we hoped to report to you, then please just bear with us, understand the nature of international negotiations and and please be be reassured that you'll all receive an official and final press release later today once we have all of those decisions in.

So that's the first point of information.

And for some of you who just joined, I can see journalists arriving every moment.

Thank you.

Just to say that not all decisions have been reached.

So not all decisions are final yet, but we'll give you those details and certainly we'll give you the final outcomes in the press release later today.

Secondly, since our Executive Secretary, Rolf Paella has to stay in plenary to continue with those negotiations, he sends his apologies, but we're very happy to have in his place Mr Carlos Martin Novella, who is the Deputy Executive Secretary for the Bowser Rotterdam and Stock com conventions.

So what we're going to do is we're going to start with Carlos Martin Novella from the the UNEP side effectively of the Bowser Rotterdam and Stock com Convention Secretary act.

And then we're going to go over to Mr Remy Nonawandim, who's the FAO Executive Secretary for the Rotterdam Convention.

So if that's all clear, then without further ado, I would like to pass over the the floor to my Deputy Executive Secretary, Carlos Martin Novella.

Carlos, are you able to take it from here?

Thank you very much, Charlie, and thank you very much to all of you who are attending this press conference.

To start with, I think it's very good news that we have managed to organise a meeting like this.

The Conference of the Parties of the three conventions that is putting together representatives from all governments around the world takes place every two years.

Due to the pandemia, this time was impossible to take them to Geneva and the fact that we have been able to keep momentum and to be able to convene this global conference on some of the top environmental priorities.

Nowadays, history is good news and it's good news also that the parties are engaging negotiations and trying to reach agreements on some of the very, very pressing issues that we are discussing.

These are good news.

The, I don't know if it's bad news or it's normal practise is that usually the last day of these negotiations is usually still in.

Doesn't matter if he's if he's face to face or he's online, the last day is always difficult.

And as proof that governments are engaged in the negotiations we have not finished yet, There is a number of officials still open and they are being discussed as we speak.

Now.

We hope that these discussions will conclude successfully in the coming few minutes or hours.

But still, as you probably aware, the Conference of the Parties agreed to discuss in this, in this digital version or step some priority issues, time bound, for example, the budget to deal with some priority activities in the coming year and to secure the continuance of the operations of the Secretariat.

And secondly, the advice that the parties will give to the global Environmental facility on how to replenish the billions of dollars that are being spent to support developing countries in implementing globally important conventions such as climate change, such as biodiversity, such as the Stockholm Convention on POPS.

So this guidance on what are the the needs, what much, much money will be need to put on the table in the next negotiations is what is being discussed as we speak now in in our conference for the parties.

There are still just a couple of paragraphs left.

This just one paragraph in the in the party discussion and one paragraph that is somehow interlink in the guidance to the government facility.

And the, the, the parties have not yet managed to reach consensus on these two paragraphs, but we are almost there.

It's 99%.

I am ready to answer some detailed questions if is any.

Thank you.

Carlos.

Perhaps we we take questions at at the end if, if, if there are questions, we could take them at the end.

I think.

So with that, I'd like to switch, if you like, from UNEP to FAO now.

And joining us from Rome is the Executive Secretary of FAO for the Rotterdam Convention.

Mr Remy, Nono, Wandim, Remy, please, if you can take it from here.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, good day.

It is my pleasure as Executive Secretary of the Rotterdam Convention Secretariat, to provide my views on the 2021 meetings of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions, as well as some insight on the progress of the implementation of the Rotterdam Convention.

UNEP and FAO are jointly hosting the Rotterdam Convention Secretaria, with FAO primarily responsible for all pesticide related issues.

The reduction of risk stemming from pesticide is one of the fundamental challenges in protecting human health and the environment.

The key objective of all three conventions.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and all the challenges it brings with it for all of us and in particular for the participants of this important meeting, the Bureau of the conference decided to discuss in this week's online setting only the most time sensitive agenda items.

This leaves the detailed deliberation of listen of hazardous chemicals and pesticides until the face to face segment of this Conference of the Parties in June 2022.

However, the Secretariat continued with its work to produce concrete results on the ground despite this pandemic and its impact, and in addition elaborated on building back data not only once this pandemic is over, but already now.

This work has been backed up by FA OS COVID-19 Response and Recovery Programme, which links social protection to agricultural livelihoods and focuses on more jobs for women and youth in agriculture.

In this regard, the Convention Secretariat published information material related to child labour in agriculture with a focus on response by pesticide.

The programme is also integrating the component of green recovery.

The Secretariat's work on sustainable alternatives, hazardous pesticide and severely hazardous pesticide formulations in order to protect human health and the environment is contributed to this.

This confidence of parties saw also a series of very interesting side areas.

We discussed, for example, scientific data and experiences from African, Caribbean and Pacific islands with highly hazardous pesticide.

In short, HHPS and alternatives with more than 240 participants.

HHPS constitute a small percentage of pesticide used globally but cause a disproportionate level of harm to health and the environment.

Recent studies have shown that unintentional acute pesticide poisoning cases exceed 350 million every year, 44% of which involve farmers.

FAO will continue to support Parties in their effort to reduce the risk from these and other pesticides, in particular through the application of sustainable approaches for managing pests and diseases such as integrated pest management, conservation agriculture, organic agriculture, agroecology or pesticides, as well as biological pest control.

The intensive discussions during this week highlight once again the key role of cooperation in promoting technical assistance to develop the necessary infrastructure and the capacity to manage pesticides and chemicals throughout their life cycle.

This will enable Parties to better implement the population, and it's particularly important for developing countries and countries with economies in transition, which might face more challenging situations and have particular needs.

The Secretary of the Conventions continue to deliver technical assistance in response to the needs expressed by Parties and with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, switch from face to face training to online trainings and projects in countries across all regions.

Carry out with the support of FEO country offices and local consultants, always respecting all prevailing COVID-19 measures.

Despite the pandemic, we were able to use the generous financial support of FEO, which provides the superior since the entry into force of the Convention with around 1.5 million US per biennium, in the best possible way.

This this has enabled many of the now 164 parties to fully address their obligations and has considerably increased the effectiveness of the Rotterdam Convention.

The considerable increase of notifications of final regulatory actions for chemicals and pesticides submitted to the Secretariat are a proof for that.

These will be reviewed by the Chemical Review Committee which plays a crucial role in the science and evidence based policy decision process.

The importance of this week's Conference of Parties was underlined by the by the opening remarks of Miss Joyce Nsuya, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, and Mr Chu Dong Yu, Director General of the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations.

Both highlighted the crucial role of the conventions were in achieving the 23rd and strategic development goals.

The FAO Director General highlighted that modern agrifood system contributed to the degradation of natural resources, including through the increased use of unsafe pesticides that pose a serious ****** to human health and the environment.

To achieve a better future for humanity, it was of fundamental importance that the management of chemicals, pesticides and waste was aligned with sustainable demand goals and work in harmony with the planet.

The new FAO Strategic Framework 2020 to 2031 will guide FA OS work over the coming decade, including the transition to more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems for better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life.

Leaving no one behind, the FL Director General called upon all of us to renew and strengthen our commitment to keep addressing chemicals, pesticides and waist **** on the international agenda to protect human health and environment while transforming our agrifood systems to eradicate hunger and malnutrition.

And in that regard, FU will remain firmly committed to the objectives of the chemicals and waste conventions and continue in particular to support developing countries and countries with an economy in transition.

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

My technical colleagues and myself will be available to answer any further questions.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Raimi.

And just before I open the floor to any questions, just to give you some more general information about what's been happening this week.

So as, as most of you know, the the Battle rotterdamons.com conventions constitute the three main legally binding multilateral environment agreements on chemicals and waste, and they enjoy almost universal coverage worldwide with 188, 164, and 184 parties respectively.

So basically, you know, most of the world is, is a party to, to these conventions.

And together we work together it with, across these conventions and, and with FAO and a number of other parties partners rather.

And, and we, we work to, to support efforts to, to reduce the impacts of hazardous waste and, and chemicals on human health and the environment.

This, this triple cop is unusual because of the pandemic 2 years ago.

We, we joined you at the end of the, the meeting on the 10th of May 2019, and we announced the landmark agreement on plastic waste whereby the Basel Convention was amended to include greater incorporation of plastic waste into the prior informed consent procedure of the Basel Convention.

This time the decisions are are less groundbreaking but equally important in terms of keeping work of these three conventions moving forward to protect human health and the environment.

We've had 1000, more than 1300 participants from across the globe, from government, from NGOs and civil society, from academia and from business and industry, as well as other international organisations.

And, and we've had more than 160 of the countries involved in these negotiations, which are ongoing as we speak.

The budget decision has still not been taken.

It's still being discussed right now online.

But as, as Remi and Carlos alluded to then, several decisions have been taken so far, subject to the budgetary approval of course, as usual.

And, and that's the election of of the members of the Rotterdam Conventions new compliance committee, which will give a boost to implementation and the source of support of parties across the world in implementing the the Rotterdam Convention and a similar development with the Stockholm Convention whereby the the members of the the Committee on effectiveness evaluation have been re elected.

And that means that the continuing work on monitoring Stockholm Convention on system organic pollutants will continue.

So we're very happy with that as as well.

So we await decisions regarding Stockholm conventions, financial mechanism and we await the kind of overarching umbrella agreement on the the budgetary decision for an interim budget for 2022.

But we're confident that we'll have outcomes for you by the end of the afternoon.

So I'll open the floor to, to questions now, but also just to remind you that you will receive an official press release summarising everything before the end of today, assuming that our meetings have actually finished before the end of the take.

So I'm going to open this up to, to the floor now And please just let us know your name and, and to whom you're addressing the, the question.

Thank you.

I don't see any questions forthcoming, but we, we're conscious of the fact that the virtual format is often a little bit cumbersome.

So we're going to, we're going to wait.

I don't know if either of our deputy or or executive secretaries would like to add anything at this stage to inform the assembled journalists.

Looks very much like there are no questions forthcoming.

Perhaps I can, I can give some indications on some of those areas of pending.

Of course the final decisions you know in negotiations until everything is decided, nothing is decided but things where there is remarkable convergence during this week and hopefully this convergence will realise on consensus by the end of the day.

There is you know one of the very important aspects of the international conventions is the compliance.

There are agreements is goodwill for countries to move into some directions, but there is normally challenges, difficulties and that's why we have in conventions, we have the compliance mechanism, compliance mechanism.

And in this in this scope, there is convergence of course, to operationalise the compliance mechanism committee that was submitted for the Rotel Convention in the last conference of the parties.

So it was already an agreement to to have this mechanism this committee two years ago.

But to make it happen, you need to meet and you need to have a secretariat and and resources to, to to deliver the work.

So this is what is the now.

Preliminary agreed today that means that the compliance of the Rotary Commission can really have a kick off as as from as from now.

Another area that was discussed and so far is convergence is in what extent we can start very soon to do additional work regarding acid LED batteries.

Charlie mentioned the Earth waking development two years ago on how to deal with plastic waste, but we know that there are many other streams of waste that are very dangerous for human health and for the environment.

One of them is acid lead batteries and having in mind the increasement in the use of batteries around the world, different sorts of batteries because of the electrification of different tools as a consequence of policies to address climate change.

We have an issue coming up that is the increase number of batteries that we are going to have in the future and we need to start addressing that before they become a bigger project problem that they are already.

So it's an agreement convergence to start updating our guidance on how to address this, this environmental problem.

There is, as I mentioned before, the important issue of the financial mechanism.

For those who are more more familiar with the multilateral environmental agreements, many of them came around or as a consequence of the Rio negotiations in back in 92.

And in that time, there was because of the development aspects of the environmental policies, there was agreement to create a global environment facility where developing countries receive very substantive report support to implement the conventions domestically.

This global environment facility is being replenished every number of years and in a cyclical manner.

It's about, I don't remember now exactly the, the, the figure done double check of maybe Charlie, you can provide that information later, but he's in the range for 4 billion per cycle, 3/4 billion per cycle.

So now we are at the end of the cycle.

They have to governments have to decide how much money they put on the table and how much money will go to biodiversity, how much money will go to climate change, how much money will go to chemicals.

And for having a first element of judgement of how much money they may aim at, they have some fit in from the convention itself.

We are expressing what are communicating what are our financial needs, not of the financial needs of the Secretariat, but the financial needs of the developing countries to achieve the final objectives of the Convention.

That's why it's so important that these, these conference of the parties today agree on these measures to the EF because the EF will start discussions on the next replenishment, yes, in the autumn, yes, a couple of months from now.

And if they don't know how much money is need, how can they discuss anything?

So it's, it's really, really important what is is being discussed today.

There are still discussions and that is one of the reasons why there is not agreement yet today.

In what extent some countries receive more support or other countries receive less support.

They are differing views of how the procedures are established to, to, to, to accudicate this funding to different countries.

And this is something that some, some parties would like our secretariat to get more involved because until now we have not been involved on that.

But apparently they, some would like us to have a say on that or at least to provide some advice on these, on these terms.

There is of course all the all the work that we are doing in implementing conventions, in implementing previous agreements, the plastic amendments for example.

It's not just to have the international agreement written on paper is a large, large number of, of projects and and initiatives trying to help countries, in particular developing countries to instrumentalise, to operationalise disagreements in their domestic legislative frameworks.

And for this, we, the secretariat, we do a coordination role, we provide and coordinate Technical Support to these countries.

So for this we need to, of course, it's sometimes administrative works, sometimes it's also Technical Support or making the brokers task of trying to find out who knows about what to go to another country to exchange experiences and so on.

So this requires quite a bit of administration and human resources.

And that's why the discussions today is also very important how much money the parties are going to give to the Secretariat in order to maintain this machinery going on.

And some good thing that because of the pandemia, the machinery was slowing down.

And it's just the opposite is I can say at least from the point of view of the BRS Secretariat, the the amount of work that we have experienced since the pandemia start has incremented very, very substantially.

We have very rapidly managed to adapt our our procedures, our ways of working into a more digital way.

And what we were doing in virtual meetings, providing technical advice to countries, now we do it in a more virtual way.

But in fact we are doing more activities that we used to do.

We are providing more advice to countries that we used to do and and everything has been because of the the spin created by these digitalisation that of course it's not the same that when you go face to face to countries.

But in the other hand, if we cannot go face to face, that's not mean that we cannot do anything.

It's the environmental problems are still there.

Some of them are even increasing.

We have seen also as a consequence of the pandemia the the problems created by waste, medical waste related to plastic related to some of the of the equipment used for addressing the problem of the pandemia has been increasing exponentially.

At the very beginning of the pandemia, the Secretariat received a lot of requests of advice from parties on how to deal with this wave of, of equipment, pandemic equipment, how to deal with this weight.

And we produce very, very quickly advice, some some documents that were distributed for all the countries.

So it's not that because of the pandemia, we have been slowing down and waiting things to happen.

In many cases, this has come up to create more work and we have been able, happily we're able to, to deliver more advice to parties on on these, on these fields.

I can continue giving you examples of what is our activities, but I guess you have already some sort of briefing of what are the mandates of our conventions and what is our main areas of activities.

Again, if there's any detail, detail request or question, I'm happy to elaborate a bit more.

Thank you, Carlos.

Remy, would you like to say some closing remarks?

OK.

Thank you, Kevis.

I'll very briefly reemphasise that throughout this week we have really witnessed a conventions of view of all parties, especially with the need to reduce the risk caused by pesticide.

And this was as I mentioned earlier, this was highlighted in the side even on highly hazarded pesticide conducted yesterday.

So maybe gave it, if that is in case it's possible.

I would like my colleague, Christine Shell with the senior Technical officer to provide some additional information, mainly on the list of the chemicals that we are referring to and which are really very toxic, not only for the environment but for public health.

OK, thank you.

In case, I hereby invite Kristen Christian over to you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Rami.

And I remember that in past press conferences, there were often many questions related to pesticides and chemicals, which the Conference of Parties was we're discussing and where we agreed on listing or there was a time there was not a consensus to list.

And this time we had on the agenda also 7 chemicals and pesticides to be discussed.

And due to this situation, due to the pandemic and the limitations of an online meeting that includes all time zones in the world, so many of our colleagues are sitting through the whole night or they have to get out very early.

So we could not discuss these chemicals and pesticides in detail, however they will, they are on the agenda.

And since we're not closing this meeting this week, but we will re adjourn it to next year June, we will discuss these and hopefully face to face this is at least planned in June 2022.

We are, as Carlos mentioned, we have not stopped paralysed by the pandemic working and providing technical assistance to parties.

On the contrary, we have immediately switched to online settings, but we were also able to continue providing some in person technical assistance to people on the ground.

And that mainly due to a network of experts of scientists of FAO colleagues all around the world that could assist in some countries with implementation of the Convention with fields activities related to hazardous pesticides.

And as Rami mentioned, this was of course always done respecting all prevailing COVID measures.

In fact, FAO has also provided training to to many farmers on, on how to take measures to prevent themselves from, from the virus when continuing working in the field.

Because as you, as you can assume, this work had to continue because we all need to be provided with, with food.

And also the chemical review committee this year will have a lot of pesticides on its agenda.

In fact, these are so many that again, if we have to meet, if we have to meet online, we can't discuss them all properly the way they need to be discussed.

So the Bureau has decided to make a selection of pesticides and there will be 7 pesticides on the agenda in September for the Chemical Review Committee.

And then there are other five I think that cannot be discussed or at least if there might be time, if there might be a possibility, then they could look into that.

But otherwise they will be discussed at the next CRC meeting.

And this is something we would like to highlight because due to all the technical assistance that also Carlos highlighted, parties have, uh, have the possibility to, to improve their ability, their capacity to implement the convention.

They have started to submit more notifications whenever they have taken final regulatory actions in the country, that is to either restrict or ban a certain chemical or pesticide.

And we could see this, umm, this effect we can see very clearly now with the increased workload of the chemical review committee.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Christine.

And and I would just like to finalise by by saying once again that the the plenary is continuing this afternoon.

It's currently in a short break.

So I suggest we we let our Executive Secretary and deputy Executive secretaries plus technical and legal colleagues.

Thank you for joining us.

Get back to those those discussions and hopefully within the next hour or two we'll have a final and official press release summarising the decisions which have yet to reach agreement on the Stockholm Conventions financial mechanism and also the interim budget for 20/22.

But just just to final finish by saying we're very positive with the way things have gone this week.

It is difficult working online.

It is difficult connecting 1000 people at a time.

FAO had more than 200 people in a side event.

We've had like 300 people in the contact group discussing the budget.

It's a, it's a very new situation for us, but it's been going very, very well.

So we, we see this very strongly as an important sign of commitment and and political will on the on behalf of most of the countries of the world to keep pushing for the sound management of chemicals and wastes globally.

So thank you very much everybody for your time and attention.

And please keep an eye on your inbox for our press release, which will be hitting your inboxes hopefully within a couple of hours.

Thank you very much and thank you very much to you Nog in Geneva for putting together this virtual press conference.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and please don't hesitate to contact should you have any more questions.

Thank you.