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

Sammanfattning

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.

Nyckelord

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

Publicerad i

Environmental Science and Technology Letters
2024, volym: 11, nummer: 7, sidor: 664-672
Utgivare: AMER CHEMICAL SOC

SLU författare

• Bertram, Michael

  • Institutionen för vilt, fisk och miljö, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    
  • Monash University
  • Stockholms Universitet

Globala målen (SDG)

SDG12 Hållbar konsumtion och produktion
SDG14 Hav och marina resurser

UKÄ forskningsämne

Miljövetenskap

Publikationens identifierare

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

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

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