A major reform in the environmental governance of chemicals and wastes was agreed in a series of simultaneously staged meetings of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions held from 22 to 24 February 2010, in Bali, Indonesia.
The meetings, which involved more than 500 delegates from more than one hundred forty governments, international and nongovernmental organizations, concluded with an agreement being reached on the opening day of the 11th Special Session of the Governing Council / Global Ministerial Environment Forum of the United Nations Environment Programme (Governing Council / Global Forum).
Calls for increased synergies amongst these three conventions were made some years ago as governments realized that insufficient cooperation and coordination at the global, regional and national levels were hindering the achievement of the sound management of chemicals throughout their full life-cycle: from their production, use and trade, to their disposal.
The reform was welcomed by officials and media celebrities from around the globe.
The Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions are the world’s three leading treaties promoting the sound management of hazardous chemicals and wastes.
Following the adoption of an omnibus synergies decision creating a joint service, including a public information service, for the Conventions, a special media event was staged to launch a global awareness raising campaign.
Safe Planet: the United Nations Campaign for Responsibility on Hazardous Chemicals and Wastes
The Safe Planet Campaign was endorsed by celebrities from around the globe, including Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, Czech Zoologist Miroslav Bobek, and actors Ed Begley Jr. and Bryan Cranston.
Begley and Cranston issued statements that they had agreed “to undergo a medical test that will reveal [their] own chemical ‘body burden’, a snap shot of our exposure to hazardous chemicals and wastes” during the event.
“Many chemicals once made for good purposes are turning up in places they were never meant to go. Dangerous pesticides that have already been banned but remain in international trade, harmful metals such as lead and mercury, and many more, place our health at risk” said Cranston, in a prepared statement read out at the Forum.
The two Hollywood actors were joined in pledging to release publicly the results of their chemical body burden by Russian scientist Dr. Olga Speranskaya and Ms. Yuyun Ismawati of Indonesia, recipients of the Goldman Environment Prize 2009 for Europe and Islands and Island States, respectively.
Dr. Peter Kenmore, Co-Executive Director of the Rotterdam Convention (FAO), and Jeremy Wates, secretary to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention), also announced they will undergo the body burden test.
“Through this campaign we must ensure that information about dangerous and even deadly substances reaches the people that need it, so they can take steps not to poison themselves” said Peter Kenmore, Co-Executive Secretary of the Rotterdam Convention for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), speaking at the United Nations Body Burden Forum late Wednesday.
United Nations Under-Secretary General Ján Kubiš, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe, and Mr. Jan Dusík, the Czech Minister of Environment, addressing the Body Burden Forum, welcomed the Safe Planet Campaign.
“UNECE serves as secretariat to important regional multilateral environmental agreements of global importance to the life-cycle approach to chemicals and waste management, including the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP), with its protocols on heavy metals and POPs, and the Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTR) to theAarhus Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters,” Mr. Kubiš said.
“I believe that the Safe Planet Campaign will bring concrete solutions to the challenge of chemicals and waste management to every corner of the planet,” said Dr. Miroslav Bobek, the newly appointed director of the Prague Zoo, in a video message presented during the Forum.
The Body Burden Forum closed with an impromtu intervention by Prof. Wangari Maathai, the United Nations Messenger of Peace and Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Welcoming the Safe Planet initiative, Prof. Maathai called for a ban on thin plastic shopping bags, which as litter create breeding grounds for mosquitos which can carry malaria to the populations across Eastern Africa and increase demands for spraying DDT in zones at risk.
"We need common sense solutions" to the control of malaria, not ones driven by "greed", said Prof. Maathai.
