The third and final scheduled session of the ad hoc Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG-3) on the Science-Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution Prevention is taking place in in Geneva, Switzerland on June 17–21, 2024. IPCP Board Members are in attendance and are providing their daily summaries. Policy briefs and other documents prepared by the IPCP as inputs to the process are available on the IPCP publications page.
The last day of the OEWG-3 meeting was a day for the government delegates: they had to marshal all efforts to finalize the meeting documents so that the mandate of OEWG-3, namely laying the foundations of the new SPP, could be fulfilled. We, as the various stakeholder and civil society groups, had decided to not make any interventions to the negotiations, but would watch the process and support the government delegates in their challenging work.
The Major Groups meeting in the morning was the last one of this long week. It was somewhat different from the other ones because we had a special guest: Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of UNEP. She spent about 15 min with us during which she delivered her views to the group, including her pragmatic optimism, and with a strong focus on the process of deliberations as it is established in the UN system, and encouraged the civil society groups to use the possibilities to be involved, as offered by the process. Three members of the Major Groups meeting delivered brief statements to her, including IPCP Vice Chair Miriam Diamond, Tom Welton (Royal Society of Chemistry), and a representative of the Children and Youth Major Group, Rabeb Aloui.
From 10 in the morning to 16:30 in the afternoon, the government delegates continued negotiating terms in the foundational documents in Contact Group 1, split into two informal negotiation groups working in small rooms in the basement. Progress remained slow because of a few dissenting countries, resulting in many remaining disagreements on the wording of the texts.
At 16:30, a plenary was convened and Chair Alkemade asked for reports from Contact Groups 1 to 3. She also proposed her plan for the way forward: all meeting documents of OEWG-3 should be contained in two Conference Room Papers that would be presented as annexes to the OEWG-3 meeting report. All of this would be forwarded to the Intergovernmental Meeting that will formally establish the new SPP. Russia objected, saying that the documents were not yet in a state that would be sufficient for submission to the Intergovernmental Meeting, thereby requiring more work and proposing that an OEWG-4 should be scheduled for this. Saudi Arabia added that they were willing to work on the remaining disagreements in the remaining 5 or 6 hours of the day, but that it may well be possible that another meeting will be needed to finalize the documents before they could be submitted to the Intergovernmental Meeting. After this exchange of views, Inger Andersen delivered an impassioned appeal to the delegates to do everything possible to finalize the documents tonight. She reminded delegates of the spirit of the UNEA 5/8 resolution to establish the panel and that other panels have moved forward without resolving all disagreements in their foundational documents. Russia responded by repeating their reservations and calling for another OEWG meeting; Angola, Switzerland, Cameroon, Kenya, the EU, Norway, Canada, Ghana, and Mexico all spoke in agreement with Inger Andersen to emphasize that it should be possible to finalize the documents tonight and pledging their willingness to achieve this goal. Saudi Arabia cautiously offered some hope.
After this, the plenary was suspended so that delegates could work on the most important documents in two informal negotiation groups, both under Contact Group 1. In the informal negotiations on the operating principles of the SPP, for example, negotiations were very slow and contentious, with various countries still attempting to incorporate new bracketed text even despite the last-minute push for agreement on the established material, and the negotiations were on a downward slope towards the smallest common denominator.
Around 21 h, both informal groups reported back to Contact Group 1, showing that substantial disagreements remained. At 21:45, the final plenary was called and the way forward was discussed, i.e., whether or not the meeting report with the two annexes containing the outcomes of the OEWG-3 meeting could be submitted to the Intergovernmental Meeting. The same fault lines appeared – Russia reiterated that more work was needed versus the EU, who spoke in favor of submitting the documents. At this point, a bizarre situation emerged, with the OEWG-3 Chair and the delegates from Russia and Saudi Arabia, later also the US, walking to one corner of the room for a small, but visible “discussion”. Some delegates were watching the EuroCup football game while the tension in the big hall was palpable.
The end of the official session, at 22:30, had been reached and the security personnel showed up in the room to ask people to leave, but the discussions in the small group in a dark corner continued with mounting tension. The situation was unreal, weird, and disturbing. Finally, Chair Alkemade announced the result: an agreement was reached that the work on the SPP documents will be continued in another OEWG session; this session will be held back-to-back with the Intergovernmental Meeting in early 2025. The exact place and time still need to be determined. Instead of an OEWG-4 meeting, this will be probably an OEWG-3.2 meeting, connected with the Intergovernmental Meeting, which is a more elegant and “face-saving” solution than a separate OEWG-4 meeting.
Overall, this is a step towards establishing the SPP, although less positive than many had hoped for. The outcome reflects the course of the tedious negotiations throughout the week; many delegates were coming to agreement, a few were unable (or unwilling?). The outcome reflects not just the views and sentiments at this OEWG-3 meeting dedicated to establishing a panel with the goal of protecting human and ecosystem health, but also the current geopolitical situation.
IISD coverage:
https://enb.iisd.org/oewg3-science-policy-panel-contribute-sound-management-chemicals-waste-prevent-pollution