Report from UNEP 6 th Global Civil Society Forum, 18-20 February 2005, Nairobi, Kenya

 Elena Lymberidi (EEB, EU), Mao Da (Global Village of Beijing, China), Faith Gemmill and Tony Gonzales (International Indian Treaty Council, Alaska-California, USA), and Karen Susassuna (Association for the Combat Against POPs, Brazil) attended the 6 th GSCF in Nairobi, Kenya on 18-20 February 2005.

 Around 100 different Civil Society organisations attended the Forum representing NGOs, Women, Youth, Indigenous Peoples, Trade Unions and Industry. The main issues which discussed were Chemicals(mainly Mercury), International Environmental Governance (IEG), Working Programme of UNEP and Budget, Millennium Development Goals, and the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Earthquake Tsunami.

In addition, these issues had been discussed at the Regional Civil Society Fora which had taken place in the last two years in preparation of this meeting. As a result of that the Global Statement of the 6 th GCSF had been produced and put on the website in advance of the meeting.

In the plenary discussions, Elena Lymberidi, EEB, presented briefly the group and the NGOs resolution which had been submitted to UNEP in advance.

During the meeting, discussions took place for all above issues. On the Saturday 19/2, the Forum was split into 3 working groups, Chemicals, International Environmental Governance (IEG), Working Programme of UNEP and Budget.

Our group participated at the Chemicals Working Group. Elena Lymberidi, EEB was appointed rapporteur of the Working group and in addition presented the NGOs resolution on Mercury. The group discussed mainly the mercury resolutions presented to UNEP including the NGO resolution. The Working group concluded with respect to Mercury:

“ NGOs, Indigenous peoples, Trade Unions and Industry agreed that concrete actions need to be taken and if partnerships are proposed, they should not be a stand alone proposal, and they should become more concrete as to how and what they will deliver. NGOs, Indigenous peoples and Trade unions supported the resolution submitted by NRDC, EEB, Greenpeace and the Ban Hg Working group. Industry would not agree to start work towards a global binding instrument.”

The outcome of the WG on Chemicals was presented to the Forum. As an outcome a Statement on Mercury was produced including the following paragraph:

“Civil Society Organisations (apart from Businesses and Industry) call for the adoption by the Governing Council of the “Proposed Governing Council Decision Submitted by the NGOs” on mercury(attached), including taking immediate concrete actions to substantially reduce mercury demand and releases, the adoption of meaningful targets, and the development of a new global binding instrument to address mercury.”

At the end of the 6 th GCSF, this statement on mercury which incorporated the NGOs resolution on Mercury, was proposed for adoption and adopted by the 6 th GSCF! It was included in the report of the 6 th GSCF and distributed to all Governments participating to the UNEP Governing Council 21-25/2/2005.

Report from the UNEP Governing Council, 21-25 February 2005, Nairobi, Kenya

Organisational aspects

Elena Lymberidi (EEB, EU), Mao Da (Global Village of Beijing, China), Faith Gemmill and Tony Gonzales (International Indian Treaty Council, Alaska-California, USA), Karen Susassuna (Association for the Combat Against POPs, Brazil), Llewellyn Leonard (groundWorks, Friends of the Earth S. Africa), Ravi Agarwal (Toxics Lin, India), Kevin Brigden (Greenpeace), Linda Greer and David Lennett (NRDC, USA) and Michael Bender (Mercury Policy Project, Ban Mercury Working Group, USA)attended the 23 rd UNEP Governing Council in Nairobi, Kenya on 21-25 February 2005.

During this week of the Governing Council there were 3 main meetings running more or less in parallel. The Ministerial, the Committee of the Whole and the Plenary. The agenda was more or less changing depending on the developments of the different issues that were discussed. In addition, the Civil Society was meeting every morning before the start of the official meetings. The agenda was usually reporting back from the different sessions people had attended and the distribution of the badges which gave us the right to speak.

At this point it is worth clarifying that all Civil Society organisations who were accredited to UNEP could attend all meetings as observers. However if an intervention was to be made, Civil Society had 15 badges for the Plenary, 15 badges for the Committee of the Whole and 2 badges for the Ministerial. The GCSF had agreed earlier on that the badges would be distributed, 1 for each of the following subgroups – women, youth, indigenous peoples, - 2 for industry and the rest ,7, for the NGOs. On the basis of the agenda, every morning at the Civil Society meeting, the badges were distributed to the persons who were planning to intervene, with the obligation to report back to the group on the following morning.

Mercury related activities

 With respect to Mercury, there was a first introduction on the issue already on Monday 21/2 in the Committee of the Whole, but there was no discussion. The positions of the different governments and stakeholders were presented on Tuesday 22/2 morning. Elena Lymberidi,EEB on behalf of the Civil Society and representing our Mercury Group, presented the NGO resolution on mercury and explained why the ‘partnerships’ proposed were not adequate as a stand alone measure, in order to reduce mercury releases and uses at global scale. After the interventions in the Committee of the Whole, a Contact Group was created to deal especially with Chemicals and mainly Mercury. The Contact Group was chaired by Viveka Bohn, Swedish Ambassador, Ministry of Sustainable Development, and started with a first meeting on Tuesday morning right after the Committee of the Whole. The work at the Contact group continued until Thursday 24/2, 22.00 where decisions at that level were finalised. Then the report of the Contact Group was presented and adopted by the Committee of the Whole, 25/2. Indigenous peoples, from our Mercury group, namely Tony Gonzales, IITC, made an intervention at the Committee of the Whole on mercury affecting Indigenous peoples, which created the interest of several governments. Later on, the report on Chemicals, together with the reports from all other issues, were presented to the Plenary and adopted, closing the 23 rd Governing Council sessions.

From the UNEP side, a Press conference on the mercury took place on the last minute on the 25/2, without unfortunately many interested parties being informed. The following press releases were published from the UN(UNEP) side http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=13454&Cr=mercury&Cr1=

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/unep272.doc.html

In parallel to these meetings there were side meetings organised from some governments who wanted to meet formally with the NGOS. There was an EU event, 21/2, where the Minister of Environment of the UK, NL and HU attended together with the EC. On Chemicals, Elena Lymberidi, EEB, presented the outcome of the GCSF on mercury; there was some discussion on the EU proposals. Then on 22/2 the French government organised a lunch where representatives of the NGOs were invited. Our Mercury Group was represented by Linda Greer, NRDC, who once more presented our views making special references which could be more interesting to the French – e.g. Mercury mining in Algeria. On the 24/2, the German Minister of the Environment also invited the NGOs. Elena Lymberidi, EEB attended the meeting, presented briefly the NGO position, but there was no time for extensive discussions since all issues were on the agenda.

Further NGO involvement:

Our group made clear from the very start the reason of its presence. Having such a wide coverage from a geographic point of view – EU, US, India, S. Africa, Brazil, China, and representatives of the Indigenous peoples from California and Alaska, made it quite easy to approach all interested and involved to the mercury debate countries.

A big thank you has to be sent however to all those other representatives of the NGOs, Women, Youth, Trade Unions who supported us and assisted us during the week.

The Global Zero Mercury Campaign group met with many different governments in bilateral meetings including EU and in particular Sweden, France, the Netherlands and the European Commission, G77 and China and particularly Uruguay, Senegal, S. Africa, Brazil, Nigeria, as well as Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Japan , Korea.

Specific arguments tailored to the situation to each country were made, text was drafted and submitted to some of the delegations, also after their request(!), parts of which was indeed adopted by some delegations and put forward on the table and adopted. In addition, the NGOs played a crucial part on the Thursday 23/2 morning where discussions did not seem to be going well, in terms of outcomes further to the ones which came out of the last Governing Council (2003). Clear argumentation on some issues on their importance for support from particular countries made the difference and lead to the final result.

Furthermore the NGO participation was also direct during the Contact Group meeting where the views of the NGOs were expressed by David Lennett, NRDC and Kevin Brigden, Greenpeace.

In addition to all above, it has to also be pointed out that at the beginning of the Contact Group, US expressed their unease concerning NGO active participation in the Contact Group, up to the point where they told the Chair that if she was to give the floor to the NGOs once more, they would ask that the NGOs are removed from the room!

This resulted to very limited interventions on the first day, something which changed slightly towards the end of the negotiations.

As an answer to that and on behalf of the NGOs, Linda Greer, NRDC, made a statement to the Plenary on the 24/2 on the Lack of Participation at the UNEP Working Group on Mercury.

Finally, a Press release was made on the 25/2/2005 by the NGOs, entitled “Governments miss chance to develop an international strategy to address global mercury crisis”.

Discussions on mercury, Main points:

The base document for discussion was the one dated 19 February 2005, circulated during the meeting, mainly incorporating all proposals from the US, EU, and Norway and Switzerland.

The participants at the Contact group were:

USA, EU and Romania represented by the Netherlands/Sweden/Austria, G77 and China represented mainly by Uruguay/ Senegal/Brazil/ Iran/ South Africa/China, Canada, Australia, Norway, Switzerland, Korea, Japan, the Environment NGOs, and Industry.

During the Contact group discussions there were mainly 4 parts to which the resolution was separated for discussion. This was the baseline:

Proposal A: Article 4 – a proposal was put on the table officially by Canada, but the text proposed was what the NGOs had suggested (Canada mentioned that during the meeting), on the inclusion of a trade tracking system, report to be done by UNEP so that situation on the flows of mercury are clarified.

Proposal B: Articles 7-11 – EU proposal, Requesting governments to prioritise and take concrete actions e.g. applying best available techniques to reduce mercury emissions from point sources; on phasing out the mercury cell technique in the chlor-alkali industry by 2020; restricting mercury in batteries to a maximum of 0.2% for button cells and 5 ppm for other batteries at the latest in 2010; urging governments and the private sector to phase out primary production of mercury on a global scale, and banning the reintroduction of mercury surpluses onto the market.

Proposal C: Articles 12-17 – US proposal: Urging governments and other institutions to develop and implement partnerships designed to achieve reductions in mercury releases, with regard to best management practices for existing chlor-alkali plants, approaches of reducing mercury emissions from utilities and industrial boilers, improved practices to reduce mercury use, exposure and releases in artisanal and small scale gold mining; the promotion of substitutes for mercury in products; Calling also upon the UNEP Executive director to participate in, undertake and facilitate the development such partnerships.

Proposal D: Articles 18-25 – Norway/Swiss proposals (supported by the EU as well) on requesting the assessment of other heavy metals of possible global concern, concluding that a globally legal binding instrument is required to reduce the risks to human health and the environment arising from releases of mercury and possibly other heavy metals.

The initial positioning of countries from the interventions at the Committee of the Whole on 22/2, in relation to the above (apart from the proposal from Canada, which was put on the table later) was the following:

US position on partnerships and against a legally binding instrument was supported by : USA, Cuba (speaking of behalf of G77 and China), Tanzania, Australia, Japan, Panama, Canada, Argentina, China, Korea, Nigeria, Uruguay, India

Many of these countries also mentioned that if a legal binding instrument is to be discussed, this discussion should take place after the discussions on Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) had finished.

EU and NW/CH positions on globally binding instrument and concrete actions/targets was supported by: Russia would take it into consideration (not very clear position), Norway, the Netherlands speaking on behalf of the EU and Romania, Iceland and Switzerland

During the Contact group meeting proposal A from Canada(NGOS), got generally accepted by all countries.

For proposals B, C, D it was evident that the parties did not agree on the initially proposed text. In reference to proposal B-concrete actions and D on the legally binding instrument although supported by EU, Norway and Switzerland the text was estimated very strict from the US and could not be supported. On the other hand however G77 mentioned clearly that they wanted concrete actions (supporting proposal B) but not the legally binding instrument because of lack of resources to cope and implement such an instrument at the moment.

In addition, proposal C on partnerships, was considered too weak from EU/NW and CH, and G77 mentioned that these looked like bilateral agreements and from their experience they never took anything out of those, so they had to be more concrete with targets/goals/timeframes etc.

On partnerships it has to be mentioned here that UNEP secretariat intervened by saying that the heavy role that was requested for UNEP to participate and undertake partnerships had to be changed since the Secretariat did not have the resources for something like that.

As a result, US, EU and Norway and Switzerland drafted new text proposals for their parts and these were put again on the table.

With these new proposals the partnerships (proposal C) became somehow stronger and included goals and timeframes and a solutions was proposed so that UNEP’s role gets lighter and more manageable for the Secretariat. This text after many modifications got at the end accepted.

Proposal D on the legal binding instrument and request on assessment of other global pollutants, became more loose, to mention that the legal binding instrument would be one of the possible options to address the need for further action on mercury, on the basis of a progress report on all activities that would be agreed, presented on the 24 th Governing Council. The request to include an assessment of lead and cadmium was narrowed down to focus especially on long-range environmental transport. These proposals, once more after several modifications were accepted by the group.

Proposal B was debated the longest. The new proposal which came up from the EU and a small roup of others, was rather weak, “Recommending”, rather than requesting, Governments and other stakeholders to take immediate actions to reduce the rusts to human health and the environment posed at global scale by addressing issues such as mercury emissions, mercury in products primary production and excess mercury supply, without entering in the specific targets of the initial proposal. Nevertheless, G77 and China, having expressed themselves strongly earlier on, after discussion on this new proposal, cam back by bringing to the table, more or less, the initial EU proposal with the concrete targets, underlining once more the importance for them to have an overall policy direction and targets which even the partnerships could follow. G77 and China, increased the pressure towards the US who seemed rather reluctant to accept such a proposal, by saying that if a policy line was not given, then the partnerships could not be supported as a whole.

As a result, the solution which was finally adopted was given, Requesting Governments and other stakeholders to take immediate actions on the issues above (emissions, products mining, surplus etc) including also examples of the chlor-alkali sector and batteries.

You can find the advanced text on the decisions as approved by the Committee of the Whole (25/2/2005) http://www.unep.org/gc/gc23/documents/GC23Decisionsadvancetext-14Mar05.doc

First NGO reaction

 A first reaction to the outcomes from the NGOs, was reflected on the Press release of 25/2/2005 by the NGOs, entitled “Governments miss chance to develop an international strategy to address global mercury crisis”.

In brief the NGO community considered the following accomplishments to be the most important:

• A recognition of the value of both curbing primary mercury mining and the introduction into commerce of excess mercury supplies;
• A decision to undertake an analysis of the global mercury trade, supply and demand in order to better understand the extent and patterns of use;
• A request that governments consider banning or restricting the use of mercury in products like batteries and processes such as chlor-alkali facilities;
• A request that governments consider controlling mercury emissions using best available techniques;
• A request that industrialized countries provide developing countries with access to financial resources in order to reduce mercury pollution; and
• A decision to assess at the 24th Governing Council session in two years the need for further action on mercury, including the possibility of a legally binding instrument.

The importance of UNEP doing a study on mercury supply and demand and trade of mercury, should also be underlined. This follows in the footsteps that the EU took in the development of its Mercury strategy, which resulted in the recommendation to curtail mercury trade and primary mining. See below the relevant article from the UNEP GC decision:

"Requests the Executive Director to further develop the mercury programme of the United Nations Environment Programme established under decision 22/4 by initiating, preparing and making public a report summarizing supply, trade, and demand information for mercury, including in artisanal and small-scale gold mining, and, based on consideration of the life-cycle approach, to submit a document forming a basis for consideration of possible further action in these areas for the consideration of the Governing Council at its twenty-fourth session;"