Exploring Outputs of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste, and Pollution Prevention

Abstract

The Science-Policy Panel (SPP) on Chemicals, Waste, and Pollution Prevention, now being established under a mandate of the United Nations Environment Assembly, will address chemical pollution, one element of the triple planetary crises along with climate change and biodiversity loss. The SPP should provide governments with consensual, authoritative, and holistic solution-oriented assessments, particularly relevant to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and, we suggest, to issues regarding the global commons. The assessments should be flexible in scope and breadth, and address existing issues retrospectively and prospectively to minimize the high costs to human and environment health that come from delayed, slow, and/or fragmented policy responses. Two examples of assessments are presented here. The retrospective example is pharmaceutical pollution, which is of increasing importance, especially in LMICs. The SPP's assessment could identify data gaps, develop regionally attuned policy options for mitigation, promote "benign-by-design" chemistry, explore educational and capacity-building activities, and investigate financial mechanisms for implementation. The prospective example is on risks posed by chemicals and waste release from critical technological infrastructure and waste sites vulnerable to sea level rise and extreme weather events. Multisectoral and multidisciplinary inputs are needed to map and develop "disaster-proofing" responses, along with financing mechanisms. The new SPP offers the ambition and mechanisms for enabling much-needed assessments explicitly framed as inputs to policy-making, to protect, and support the recovery of, local to global human and environmental health.

Keywords

science-policy interface; international chemicals management; chemicals and waste; pollution prevention; multilateral environmental agreements; solution-orientedassessment

Published in

Environmental Science and Technology Letters
2024, Volume: 11, number: 7, pages: 664-672 Publisher: AMER CHEMICAL SOC

SLU Authors

• Bertram, Michael

  • Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Monash University
  • Stockholm University

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG12 Responsible consumption and production
SDG14 Life below water


UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00294

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/131098