Archives
69th Meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC69)
Existential fault lines may remain, but the Commission’s civil and efficient deliberations resulted in some groundbreaking advances, demonstrating it can protect whales not only from hunting, but from other threats, including bycatch, entanglements, vessel strikes, climate change, underwater noise, and pollution.
20th Meeting of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee to the Stockholm Convention (POPRC-20)
Members faced the complexities of eliminating persistent organic pollutants (POPs) from complex global supply chains. Recommendations to list new chemicals all involved discussions on exemptions that would allow some ongoing uses, and how to handle downstream implications of those uses.
Summit of the Future
Acknowledging the multilateral system is broken, many speakers said with slow progress or regression on the Sustainable Development Goals, the Summit should be seen as a last-ditch effort to turn the tide and reimagine a system of global governance that works for all.
Working With Countries to Move Beyond GDP and Promote Inclusive and Sustainable Development
An event on the sidelines of the Action Days at the Summit of the Future explored the feasibility of complementary measures to move beyond GDP—and how to convince policymakers to adopt them.
20th Meeting of the Chemical Review Committee (CRC-20)
The CRC reviewed a record 35 notifications of final regulatory action, as well as four proposals for listing severely hazardous pesticide formulations. The Committee adopted draft decision guidance documents for chlorpyrifos and mercury, and agreed that notifications on chlorpyrifos-methyl and paraquat meet the criteria to be listed in the Rotterdam Convention. The CRC will continue reviewing notifications on nine substances and three severely hazardous pesticide formulations at its next meeting.
12th Meeting of the Ad Hoc Open ended Working Group to Enhance the Functioning of the ITPGRFA Multilateral System
Negotiations on enhancing the Multilateral System of access and benefit-sharing may have a breakthrough in sight: a new compromise proposal to establish a subscription mechanism with two alternative triggers for mandatory monetary benefit-sharing: early payment upon registration or deferred payment upon commercialization.
3rd Berlin Forum on Chemicals and Sustainability
The Forum let stakeholders evaluate progress on the Global Framework on Chemicals' objectives and targets one year after its adoption.
5th Global Conference on Climate & SDG Synergies
Speakers noted that evidence indicates pursuing the goals of the Paris Agreement in conjunction with the SDGs will lead to greater co-benefits than trade-offs, while unlocking barriers to synergistic solutions should be a primary focus.
2nd Meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Benefit-sharing from the Use of Digital Sequence Information on Genetic Resources
The outcome of the week’s deliberations is a heavily-bracketed recommendation to the Conference of the Parties, including options on: monetary contributions by digital sequence information (DSI) users to the global fund; the methodology and criteria for funding allocation; and data governance.