What is the issue?
The consumption of chemicals by all industries and modern society’s reliance on chemicals for virtually all manufacturing processes make chemical production one of the major and most globalised sectors of the world economy. Acknowledgement of the essential economic role of chemicals and their contribution to improved living standards needs to be balanced with recognition of potential costs. These include the chemical industry’s heavy use of water and energy and the potential adverse impacts of chemicals on the environment and human health. The diversity and potential severity of such impacts makes sound chemicals management a key cross-cutting issue for sustainable development.
How is it being addressed?
The Global Framework on Chemicals (GFC) is the successor of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), a policy framework adopted in 2006 to promote chemical safety worldwide. The aim of SAICM was to achieve the sound management of chemicals throughout their life cycle so that, by the year 2020, chemicals are produced and used in ways that minimise significant adverse impacts on human health and the environment. The Fifth Session of the International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM 5) was the culmination of work to develop a “Beyond 2020” instrument for SAIC<, and was the first meeting to take place after 2020, the year in which SAICM was intended to have achieved its overall objective.
The GFC was adopted at the ICCM-5 held in Bonn, Germany, during September 2023 with the vision of a planet free of harm from chemicals and waste for a safe, healthy and sustainable future. Trinidad and Tobago was instrumental in the establishment of the GFC as the country was the Co-Chair of the Committee of the Whole (COW), alongside Germany, where the substantive negotiations were undertaken.
The GFC is a multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral framework that aims to promote safe and sustainable practices that covers the entire life cycle of chemicals, including products and waste. Its unique multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral approach encompasses the involvement of all relevant sectors, including environment, health, agriculture, and labour, and stakeholders, including governments, intergovernmental organisations, civil society, and the private sector, across the life cycle of chemicals at the local, national, regional, and global levels, as well as consideration of environmental and social aspects that are critical to the sound management of chemicals and waste.
The Framework has (12) parts, consisting of eight (8) key principles, five (5) strategic objectives, twenty-eight (28) targets, and three (3) annexes.
Implementation of the Framework should be guided by the principles and approaches in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and, as appropriate, those in annex II to the Framework, as well as the following eight (8) key principles:
- Knowledge and information
- Transparency
- Human Rights
- Groups in vulnerable situation
- Gender equity
- Preventative approaches
- Just transition
- Collaboration and participation
The strategic objectives and targets established will guide stakeholders in their efforts at all levels to address the sound management of chemicals and waste. The targets are thematic and time-bound, and their implementation must be measurable and comprehensible using indicators.
The five (5) strategic objectives of GFC are:
- Legal frameworks, institutional mechanisms and capacities are in place to support and achieve the safe and sustainable management of chemicals throughout their life cycle.
- Comprehensive and sufficient knowledge, data and information are generated, available and accessible to all to enable informed decisions and actions.
- Issues of concern are identified, prioritised and addressed.
- Safer alternatives and innovative and sustainable solutions in product value chains are in place so that benefits to human health and the environment are maximised and risks are prevented or, where prevention is not feasible, minimised.
- Enhanced implementation occurs through increased and effective resource mobilisation, partnerships, cooperation, capacity-building, and integration into all relevant decision-making processes.
In addition to the GFC, ICCM-5 also adopted the Bonn Declaration, in which ministers and delegation leaders committed to the implementation of the Framework, and stakeholders agreed to establish a Global Framework on Chemicals Fund as a voluntary- time-limited trust fund to be administered by UNEP to support the implementation of the Framework.
For further information please visit: https://www.unep.org/global-framework-chemicals
What needs to be done locally?
Member States including Trinidad and Tobago should initiate definitive action to achieve the targets set out in the GFC by the specified deadlines, within national circumstances and as far as feasible.