From water bottles to smartphones, tens of thousands of chemicals are used around the world to make billions of products. Some of these chemicals are harmless. Others, however, carry toxic properties, affecting the development of children at their most vulnerable stages, damaging the environment, and building up in our bodies over time, compounding their already toxic effects. Yet, effective regulation of these chemicals has been difficult: The standard approach to global chemicals regulation has been to regulate individual chemicals, like mercury or lead, or certain groups of chemicals, like Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). But this patchwork approach has left major gaps, leaving tens of thousands of other chemicals unregulated — and therefore on the market with (known or unknown) toxic properties.
In 2006, the UN adopted a policy framework to globally manage chemicals throughout their lifecycle. While the framework, known as the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), isn’t legally binding, it is an important step forward to reduce chemical pollution in the environment, protect human health from toxic chemicals, and coordinate a global effort to manage these chemicals for the first time. However, SAICM’s mandate expires in 2020, long before we will have had a chance to reach the target of minimizing the health and environmental impacts of all chemicals throughout their lifecycle.
Now, with only two years left of SAICM, countries have to decide what to do beyond 2020. Right now, there’s debate as to how countries should continue SAICM’s work or replace it with a different framework. But with only a short amount of time left to come to an agreement, delegates have not made nearly enough progress.
In March of this year, delegates of SAICM met to discuss their views and ideas on the future of chemicals and waste management. However, the group couldn’t produce a draft that would take the policy past 2020. And important questions about how to actually implement any proposed framework still loom large — from the question of how to finance a post-2020 framework, to how to promote greater accountability than in the existing SAICM framework. If delegates want to make real progress, they can’t leave these problems unaddressed.
Many delegates did agree, however, that the lack of consensus and the long list of remaining issues mean that the next formal meeting in February 2019 will be a challenge.
Even though SAICM is the broadest global framework for chemicals management, it’s facing financial setbacks for the future. SAICM financing is already placing undue burden on some participating countries, and without adequate financing, it will be difficult to implement the post-2020 framework. Unfortunately, there are still assessment gaps in quantifying how much money is actually needed to support global chemicals management. And on top of that, there have been no plans to sustainably finance the enterprise.
The costs of implementing this global undertaking are still largely borne by public finance, either from donor countries or countries in the Global South, rather than by the economic operators who are the main contributors to chemical pollution. Currently, SAICM’s finances depend mostly on donor countries, who voluntarily give money to support the framework, and this places an undue financial burden on just a few countries. So far, discussions around SAICM have been limited to addressing government funding. But if SAICM hopes to further its reach beyond 2020, it also needs to include the financial responsibility of corporate and private actors.
At the moment, industry claims that its contribution to global chemicals management comes in the form of paying taxes and complying with health and environmental regulations. This is problematic and inaccurate because it conflates obligations to comply with the legal framework in which it operates with active participation in financing effective chemicals management.
In effect, companies profit from the use of dangerous chemicals, and yet the costs of cleaning up and managing chemical pollution are borne by society. If a post-2020 framework were to also require companies to bear part of the cost, this would shift some of the responsibility onto those who are actually contributing to the problem and away from those who are most directly harmed by toxic chemical exposure.
The beyond 2020 discussion provides an important opening for countries to address SAICM’s current problems and answer its most pressing objective: introducing a sustainable framework that will ensure effective chemicals and waste management beyond 2020.
By Madeleine Simon, Communications Intern
Originally posted on May 4, 2018