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The Contribution of Environmental Monitoring to the Review of the Effectiveness of Environmental Treaties Anne Daniel*,† Retired, Department of Justice, Government of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0H8
Ramon Guardans‡ Independent Scholar, Alavarez de Castro 12, E-28010 Madrid, Spain
Tom Harner§ Air Quality Processes Research Section, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3H 5T4 regulating approximately 30 chemicals with these characteristics, banning intentional production, use, import and export, with some exemptions allowed for essential uses. It is a global treaty with 181 Parties from all regions of the world. Article 16 of the Convention requires the Conference of the Parties to periodically assess the Convention’s effectiveness. Effectiveness evaluation is more than an assessment of whether Parties to an agreement comply with it: it is an assessment of whether the rules chosen to solve an environmental problem even if fully complied withare effective in doing so. Monitoring work over recent decades has provided vast collections of high quality data on POPs in multiple media and sites that, in combination with the current statistical and process modeling tools, can yield invaluable insights to understand the history of the current natural and regulatory environment and enable the design of intertwined monitoring and science-based control actions that are as effective as possible. These data unequivocally show large decreases of some POPs in recent decades, and thus that this approach can work. Specifically, the 2017 EE Committee report highlights the main findings of the first and second Global Monitoring Plan (GMP) reports http://chm.pops.int/Implementation/Globalhis Viewpoint argues that monitoring data and regulatory MonitoringPlan/MonitoringReports/tabid/525/Default.aspx, controls at the international level should form part of a which summarize the work of international programs measuring continuous loop evaluating the effectiveness of those controls to POPs. The GMP focuses on core media (air, human milk and successfully achieve incremental improvements to the global blood, and water) while also including relevant data sets for other environment over time. To illustrate, it will explore the historical environmental media from established long-term monitoring aspects of POPs monitoring and regulation, briefly outline key programs. The second GMP report summarizes the important results of the first Effectiveness Evaluation (EE) Committee of progress that has resulted directly and indirectly from the the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Stockholm Convention, including (i) capacity building to [22 May 2001, 2256 UNTS 119; 40 ILM 532 (2001) (entered address regional data gaps for POPs in core media, through into force May 17, 2004)], and describe the challenges still facing improved regional and international cooperation in monitoring; the Convention. (ii) a new global monitoring database for POPs (http:// POPs are chemicals that are inherently toxic, persistent in the www.pops-gmp.org/index.php?pg=gmp-data-warehouse); and environment, bioaccumulative and susceptible to long-range (iii) improved understanding of the long-range transport of transport through the atmosphere, oceans, rivers, and migrating POPs, source attribution, and spatial and temporal trends organisms, resulting in their occurrence in polar and other through the application of chemical transport and fate models remote and sensitive ecosystems and the organisms and people that inhabit these environments. The 2001 Stockholm Convention, in force since May 2004, integrates preceding Received: November 29, 2017 national and regional regulation and goes further, currently
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© XXXX American Chemical Society
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.7b06148 Environ. Sci. Technol. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
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Environmental Science & Technology ‡
with optimized emissions inventories and improved monitoring data for model evaluation. One of the key findings of the EE Committee was that monitoring results indicate that regulations targeting POPs have succeeded in reducing levels of POPs in both humans and the environment. For the “legacy POPs”, the 12 initially listed as part of the Convention at entry into force, concentrations in air and in humans have “declined and continue to decline or remain at low levels due to restrictions on POPs that predated the Stockholm Convention and are now incorporated into it”.1 The findings are less positive for chemicals listed in 2009 and subsequently, as monitoring data shows that while concentrations of some are beginning to show decreases, in a few instances, increasing or stable levels are observed.1 The report was nevertheless able to conclude on the basis of the data analyzed that “effective regulatory actions at the global level post-entry into force...particularly for listed POPs that are still in commerce, are expected to lower environmental concentrations in the long term.”2 It also concluded that global monitoring of POPs, as well as data sharing and modeling, should be sustained in the long term in order to confirm both decreases in legacy POPs and trends in the more recently added POPs. Regarding new POPs, some challenges were highlighted including that when some chemicals are listed as POPs, the alternatives they are replaced with become POPs themselves−the “hydra effect”and the need for greater awareness regarding presence of new POPs in products. Other key outcomes were the finding that the Convention provides an “effective and dynamic framework to regulate POPs throughout their lifecycle” but that inadequate implementation was the key issue identified.3 The report delved into various aspects of implementation, including lack of implementing legislation, low rates of national reporting, the absence of a mechanism to promote compliance and the need for additional financing in support of Parties’ implementation of the Convention. It also raised the question of the lack of any intersessional body focusing on implementation issues, and suggests changes to the indicators, illustrating that an examination of monitoring datawhile necessaryis not sufficient to fully understand how to improve the effectiveness of the Convention. The work of the first Stockholm Effectiveness Evaluation Committee demonstrates that high quality monitoring data is crucial to understanding whether regulatory controls have been successful in achieving improvements to the global environment, as well as to enhancing the implementation of regulatory controls at the global level. The Stockholm Convention’s lessons from the ongoing relationship between monitoring data and regulatory controls could prove particularly important as similar structures are in the process of being established under the Minamata Convention on Mercury, and as the Paris Agreement prepares to undertake its “global stocktake”.
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Co-chair of the Global Coordination Group for the Global Monitoring Plan of the Stockholm Convention and Member of the First Effectiveness Evaluation Committee. Scientific adviser on POPs. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food and Environment MAPAMA (Ministerio de Agricultura y Pesca, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente) Madrid. § Member of the Global Coordination Group for the Global Monitoring Plan and Member of the First Effectiveness Evaluation Committee.
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REFERENCES
(1) Executive Summary. Eighth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention, Geneva, Switzerland from 24 April−05 May 2017; Stockholm Convention: Châtelaine, Switzerland; UNEP/POPS/ COP.8/22/Add.1, paragraphs 22 and 25−31. (2) Executive Summary. Eighth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention, Geneva, Switzerland from 24 April−05 May 2017; Stockholm Convention: Châtelaine, Switzerland; UNEP/POPS/ COP.8/22/Add.1, paragraph 31. (3) Executive Summary. Eighth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention, Geneva, Switzerland from 24 April−05 May 2017; Stockholm Convention: Châtelaine, Switzerland; UNEP/POPS/ COP.8/22/Add.1, paragraph 21.
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. ORCID
Tom Harner: 0000-0001-9026-3645 Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest. † Chair of the First Stockholm Convention Effectiveness Evaluation Committee. B
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.7b06148 Environ. Sci. Technol. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
