Rise of the Global South Highlights Minamata Convention on Mercury COP5

In 2013, a new treaty, the Minamata Convention on Mercury, was adopted by a global community under the auspices of UNEP. The Convention is named after Minamata Bay in Japan to remember the lessons of the tragic health damage by industrial mercury pollution in the 1950s and 1960s. The aim of the treaty is to protect the environment and the human health from anthropogenic emissions and releases of the toxic heavy metal. It regulates the entire life cycle of mercury – its supply, trade, use, emissions, releases, storage, and the management of waste and contaminated sites.By Charlie BrownWASHINGTON, Dec 12 2023 (IPS) As it strives to be the prototype environmental treaty of this era, the Minamata Convention on Mercury continues its razor-like focus on ending all major uses of mercury. Emerging as the force leading the charge is the Global South, particularly the Africa Region, whose proposals led to hard-charging changes addressing dental amalgam, mercury-based skin creams, and fluorescent lights. At the Fifth Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention (“COP5”), concluding in Geneva on 3 November, countries debated the African Amalgam Amendment, calling for the phase out of amalgam. The Africa region, led by Roger Baro, the Environment Minister of Burkina Faso, strategically built alliances beforehand, starting with the crucial 27-nation European Union. Civil society was inspired watching one delegate after another rising to support the phase out of mercury in d...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Africa Asia-Pacific Environment Headlines Health IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse Sustainable Development Goals TerraViva United Nations IPS UN Bureau Source Type: news