Archives
9th Session of the ITPGRFA Governing Body
Meeting at a crucial moment for the future of the Treaty, parties relaunched negotiations on measures to enhance the functioning of the Treaty’s Multilateral System of access and benefit-sharing. Parties further addressed farmers’ rights and issues related to “digital sequence information/genetic sequence data” (data derived from genetic resources that is often shared freely online) that could undermine the benefit-sharing regime.
2022 SDG Moment
The UN Secretary-General said this year’s SDG Moment arrived at a moment of “great peril” for our world and encouraged leaders to avoid the temptation of leaving development priorities for a sunnier day. The 90-minute event highlighted a few SDGs as particularly critical to achieving the world's ambitions for a better future, such as climate action (SDG 13) and equality (SDGs 5 and 10).
4th Meeting of the Intersessional Process for Considering SAICM and the Sound Management of Chemicals and Waste Beyond 2020
Participants made progress on the outline for a future framework on chemicals and waste to guide global efforts for years to come, and agreed to reconvene in early 2023 for further deliberations to enable the framework’s adoption at the International Conference on Chemicals Management in September 2023.
5th Session of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on the BBNJ
Despite more progress at this two-week session than over the last decade, delegates were unable to reach consensus on a new high seas treaty addressing marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction and, instead, suspended the session, to be resumed in early 2023. (View coverage of the resumed BBNJ talks in late February - early March 2023)
27th Session of the Assembly of the International Seabed Authority (ISA-27)
As environmental concerns continue to grow, the prospect of extracting mineral resources from the deep seabed has generated quite a debate, which permeated the work of the Assembly.
3rd Global Conference on Strengthening Synergies between the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Highlighting the synergies and gains to be made by tackling climate and sustainable development challenges in a coordinated manner, the conference also identified steps that countries can take in their national reporting to build support for action and counter the perception that climate mitigation is somehow too expensive.
44th Meeting of the Open-ended Working Group of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol (OEWG-44) and 5th Extraordinary Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol (ExMOP-5)
The first in-person meeting in over two years replenished the Multilateral Fund and addressed questions of gaps in global monitoring of ozone depleting substances, specific usage and production of methyl bromide and carbon tetrachloride, and energy efficiency and phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons that contribute to climate change.
5th Local and Regional Governments Forum on the 2030 Agenda
Meeting at the intersection of interconnected crises—the COVID-19 pandemic; climate change; wars, including in Ukraine—many delegates raised the resulting challenges faced by local and regional governments while also pointing to innovative solutions they carry, including how to implement the Sustainable Development Goals.
High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF 2022)
“Our world is in deep trouble—and so too are the Sustainable Development Goals,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, setting the tone for this year’s review of implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at a time of significant international crisis, uncertainty, and upheaval.