The resumed third session of the ad hoc United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG 3.2) on the Science-Policy Panel (SPP) on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution Prevention is taking place in Punta del Este, Uruguay. This event is organized back-to-back with the intergovernmental meeting to consider the establishment of the new Panel. The IPCP delegation includes three board members Martin Scheringer, Miriam Diamond, and Maria Clara Starling who are providing daily meeting summaries. Policy briefs and other documents prepared by the IPCP as inputs to the process are available on the IPCP publications page.
For us as observers, the first day of the OEWG 3.2 session began with a Major Groups coordination meeting; the meeting was chaired by Anna Odur (Association of Uganda Professional Women in Agriculture and Environment) and Martin Scheringer (IPCP) and the only agenda item was the finalization of the statement to be supported by all Major Groups and Stakeholders present. In spite of different views and several points of disagreement, the group worked in a constructive and productive manner and was able to create a statement supported by all. Its main point is to argue for the participation of non-governmental groups in the Interdisciplinary Expert Panel (IEC) of the SPP. The statement was delivered later in the morning during the first plenary session by Anna Odur and can be found here (tab “Statements”, at the bottom of the page, “Major Groups and Stakeholders”). It is also mentioned here.
The plenary opened at 10:00 am, attended by representatives from 98 governments and 35 observers. Chair Gudi Alkemade opened the resumed third session of the OEWG and Edgardo Ortuño, Minister of Environment of Uruguay, welcomed delegates by calling this moment “historic,” comparing the SPP establishment to the creation of the IPCC and IPBES. He emphasized Uruguay’s commitment to environmental multilateralism, scientific engagement, inclusivity—including gender and indigenous knowledge—and the urgent need to rethink modes of living, echoing the message of Rio+20.
As the next speaker, Inger Andersen, UNEP’s Executive Director, reiterated the pressing need for a science-policy panel on chemicals, waste, and pollution. Besides emphasizing that the relevance of having scientific evidence available to aid under-resourced countries, she laid out foundational elements for the SPP:
1. It must operate on transparent, interdisciplinary principles with strong stakeholder participation.
2. Membership should be open to all UN member states.
3. A spirit of flexibility and compromise is essential.
4. The role of observers must be clarified to ensure inclusive representation.
5. Bracketed text on the foundational document should be minimized to facilitate progress.
6. Strategic partnerships, as with IPBES, can evolve over time.
Before it closed at 12:30, the plenary decided that three contact groups should be established. IPCP members attended Contact Group 1 on “Membership and functions of the bodies of the panel, decision-making and rules of procedure” as it covers key points concerning the role of non-governmental groups in the SPP. The draft document showing the foundational document of the SPP can be found here, document “UNEP/SPP-CWP/OEWG.3/6”, and the draft Rules of Procedure (RoP) are in the document “UNEP/SPP-CWP/OEWG.3/7”. A first major point of contention was the decision-making mechanism of the SPP’s plenary (rule 35 in the RoP), regarding voting procedures. While several countries supported a fallback voting mechanism when consensus cannot be reached, others opposed it. According to our (IPCP) understanding, the absence of a voting mechanism could easily block the SPP’s Plenary and render it unable to resolve contentious questions. Because no agreement could be reached, the co-facilitators of CG1, Toks Akinseye (UK) and Miguel Eduardo Ruiz Botero (Colombia) “parked” the issue, which for now remains unresolved.
After hours of mostly unproductive discussions and several “parked” issues, a general feeling of frustration could be felt in the room. Progress was extremely slow or absent and an obvious concern was that the time available for OEWG 3.2 would not be sufficient to resolve the many disagreements. Moreover, some of the disagreements are so fundamental that it is not clear how a consensus may be reached at all.
In the evening, the contact group started discussing the membership of the Interdisciplinary Expert Panel (paragraphs 14 to 18 of the draft Foundational Document). The current version of paragraph 17 mentions participation of non-governmental groups in meetings of the IEC; this is the point in the document that is at the core of the Major Groups statement created in the morning and delivered to the plenary. In the contact groups, a rule is that statements by non-governmental groups, to be considered, need to be supported by at least one country. The IPCP delegation approached several government delegates and asked if they were willing to support a statement from the non-governmental groups calling for their representation in the IEC. Some countries from the Global South were open or even supportive, whereas countries from the Global North strongly denied any such possibility. It was stated clearly that all the work of the SPP’s bodies will be “government only”, also with reference to the existing intergovernmental panels, IPCC and IPBES, where such participation of non-governmental groups does not exist.
Given the importance of scientific and other practical expertise to the work of the SPP, we think this limitation is not productive. One of the functions of the IEC will be “Developing a transparent peer-review process to ensure the highest levels of scientific quality, independence, inclusivity, integrity, and credibility for the Panel’s deliverables”. It is obvious that direct involvement of active scientists in this activity would be helpful because this is something that scientists do as part of their daily work, whereas it is not part of the work of any other group. The view of many government delegates, however, is that scientists will be active only in the actual scientific assessments carried out by the SPP, but not in the SPP’s management and organization of work.
The day closed at 10 pm with a sense of stagnation and frustration. While some areas saw cautious movement, many critical structural issues remained unresolved and discussions were postponed.
The IPCP has developed several documents as inputs to the process, these are available on the IPCP publication page.
IISD coverage: https://enb.iisd.org/oewg3-2-science-policy-panel-contribute-sound-management-chemicals-waste-prevent-pollution