Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Target 12.4: By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment

Indicator 12.4.1: Number of parties to international multilateral environmental agreements on hazardous waste, and other chemicals that meet their commitments and obligations in transmitting information as required by each relevant agreement

Last updated: 11 July 2017

Related indicators

Indicators 12.4.2, 12.5.1, 3.9.1, 3.9.2 and 3.9.3.

Institutional information

Organization(s):

UN Environment (United Nations Environment Programme)

Definition:

The indicator refers to the number of parties (=countries that have ratified, accepted, approved or accessed), to the following Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs):

1. The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (Basel Convention);
2. The Rotterdam Convention on the prior informed consent procedure for certain hazardous chemicals and pesticides in international trade (Rotterdam Convention);
3. The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (Stockholm Convention);
4. The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (Montreal Protocol);
5. Minamata Convention on Mercury (Minamata Convention),

Which have submitted the information to the Secretariat of each MEA, as required by each of the agreements.

The information required is as follows:

Basel Convention^[2]:

1. Designation of the Focal Point and one or more Competent Authorities;
2. Submission of the annual national reports.

Rotterdam Convention:

1. Designation of the Designated National Authority(-ies) and Official contact points;
2. Submission of the import responses.

Stockholm Convention:

1. Designation of the Stockholm Convention official contact points and national focal points;
2. Submission of the national implementation plans;
3. Submission of the revised national implementation plan addressing amendments;
4. Submission of the national reports.

Montreal Protocol:

1. Compliance with reporting requirements for production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances under (Article 7 of) the Montreal Protocol;
2. Submission of information on Licensing systems under (Article 4B of) the Montreal Protocol.

Minamata Convention:

1. Designation of a national focal point for exchange of information under Article 17 of the Convention;
2. Submission of national reports as required under Article 21 of the Minamata Convention.

Concepts:

Parties: Countries that have ratified, accepted, approved or accessed a convention.

Information: Parties to the Basel Convention have an obligation to present an annual national report as provided for by Article 13, paragraph 3 in order to enable monitoring of the implementation of the Basel Convention by its Parties. The reports are to contain, inter alia, Information regarding transboundary movements of hazardous wastes or other wastes in which Parties have been involved, including the amount of hazardous wastes and other wastes exported, their category, characteristics, destination, any transit country and disposal method as stated on the response to notification, the amount of hazardous wastes and other wastes imported their category, characteristics, origin, and disposal methods; information on accidents occurring during the transboundary movement and disposal of hazardous wastes and other wastes and on the measures undertaken to deal with them; information on disposal options operated within the area of their national jurisdiction; and other information as per reporting format.

Import responses under the Rotterdam Convention are the decisions provided by Parties indicating whether or not they will consent to import the chemicals listed in Annex III of the Convention and subject to the prior informed consent (PIC) procedure. Article 10 of the Rotterdam Convention sets out the obligations of Parties with respect to the future import of chemicals listed in Annex III.

Under the Stockholm Convention a Party has an obligation to report on the measures it has taken to implement the provisions of the Convention and on the effectiveness of such measures in meeting the objectives of the Convention. The national reports include statistical data on the total quantities of production, import and export of each of the chemicals listed in Annex A and Annex B or a reasonable estimate of such data; and to the extent practicable, a list of the States from which it has imported each such substance and the States to which it has exported each such substance. A National Implementation Plan under the Stockholm Convention is a plan explaining how a Party is going to implement the obligations under the Convention and make efforts to put such a plan into operation (Article 7). Changes in the obligations arising from amendments to the Convention or its annexes, for example when a new chemical is listed into the annexes of the Convention, a Party will review and update its implementation plan, and transmit the updated plan to the Conference of the Parties within two years of the entry into force of the amendment for it, consistent with paragraph 1 (b) of the Convention (according to paragraph 7 of the annex to decision SC-1/12).

Data sources

Description:

1. Basel Convention: national focal points, electronic reporting system for annual national reports;
2. Rotterdam Convention: official contact points, PIC circular for import responses;
3. Stockholm Convention: official contact points; electronic reporting system for national reports every four years, National Implementation Plans;
4. Montreal Protocol: national focal points;
5. Minamata Convention: national focal points.

Collection process:

Data is collected by the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions from Focal Points for the Basel Conventions, Official contact points for the Rotterdam Convention, official contact points for the Stockholm Convention, by the Ozone Secretariat from national focal points for the Montreal Protocol, and by the Secretariat of the Minamata Convention from national focal points for the Minamata Convention.

Calendar

Data collection:

1. First reporting cycle: 2017;
2. Second reporting cycle: 2020;
3. Third reporting cycle: 2025;
4. Fourth reporting cycle: 2030.

Data release:

1. First reporting cycle: 2010-2014;
2. Second reporting cycle: 2015-2019;
3. Third reporting cycle: 2020-2024;
4. Fourth reporting cycle: 2025-2029.

Data providers

1. Focal Points and Competent Authorities for the Basel Conventions (185 Parties);
2. Designated National Authorities and Official contact points for the Rotterdam Convention (180 Parties);
3. Official contact points and national focal points for Stockholm Convention (156 Parties);
4. Focal points for Montreal Protocol (197 Parties);
5. Focal points for information exchange and national focal points for the Minamata Convention (currently 35 Parties).

Data compilers

1. Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions;
2. Ozone Secretariat;
3. Secretariat of the Minamata Convention.

Rationale:

The proposed indicator is process-oriented, focusing on compliance with the obligations that contribute to the overall target of achieving the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle.

It doesn’t measure the quantity of chemicals in media and doesn’t quantify adverse impacts on human health and the environment. The MEAs, however, were developed and adopted to address the most urgent challenges for human health and the environment and therefore, through the implementation of MEAs progress will be made to reduce release to air, water and soil and well as presence of hazardous chemicals in products.

Comments and limitations:

The transmission of information as required by the five Conventions follows a different timing. This is the reason why the reporting to this indicator has been scheduled for 5-year cycles, which would allow capturing the compliance of Parties with the transmission of information of all the Conventions.

Please also note that the timing for submission of reporting for the Minamata Convention has not yet been agreed on. It is not clear whether any reporting will be required prior to 2020, nor it is clear how many times reporting would be required prior to 2030. Thus, the Minamata Convention is included here, but the reporting is subject to further decisions on this.

Methodology

Computation method:

In the following methodology, reporting is to take place in 2017 for the period 2010-2014, in 2020 for the period 2015-2019, in 2025 for the period 2020-2024 and in 2030 for the period 2025-2029. Reporting parameters include the following:

The Country Score depends on the amount of information that is sent to the Conventions’ Secretariat, and is calculated as follows (and communicated by the Secretariats):

Basel Convention:

1. Designation of the Focal Point and one or more Competent Authorities (1 point);
2. Submission of the annual national reports during the reporting period (1 point per report).

Rotterdam Convention:

1. Designation of the Designated National Authority(-ies) and Official contact point (1 point);
2. Submission of the import responses during the reporting period (0,2 point per import response).

Stockholm Convention:

1. Designation of the Stockholm Convention official contact point and national focal point (1 points);
2. Submission of the national implementation plan (1 points);
3. Submission of the revised national implementation plan(s) addressing the amendments adopted by the Conference of the Parties within the reporting period (1 point per revised and updated plan)^[3];

Montreal Protocol:

1. Compliance with reporting requirements for production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances under (Article 7 of) the Montreal Protocol (15 points);
2. Submission of information on Licensing systems under (Article 4B of) the Montreal Protocol (5 points).

Minamata Convention^[4]:

1. Designation of a national focal point (Article 17) (5 points);
2. Submission of national report (Article 21) (15 points).

Transmission Rate = ((a_cs + b_cs + c_cs + d_cs + e_cs)/N. of Conventions) * 100

The final indicator will be a number expressed as percent, where 100% is the maximum degree of compliance with the reporting obligations of the MEAs to which a Country is a Party, and 0% the least degree of compliance with those obligations.

Treatment of missing values:

• At country level:

Missing values are not imputed.

• At regional and global levels:

Missing values are not imputed.

Regional aggregates:

For the aggregation methods, please see:

http://pre-uneplive.unep.org/media/docs/graphs/aggregation_methods.pdf

Data availability

Description:

1. Basel Conventions: 185 Parties;
2. Rotterdam Convention: 180 Parties;
3. Stockholm Convention: 156 Parties;
4. Focal points for Montreal Protocol: 197 Parties;
5. Minamata Convention: currently 35 Parties.

Time series:

The reporting on this indicator will follow a 5-year cycle.

1. First baseline reporting cycle in 2017: data collected from 2010 to 2014;
2. Second reporting cycle in 2020: data collected from 2015 to 2019;
3. Third reporting cycle in 2025: data collected from 2020 to 2024;
4. Fourth reporting cycle in 2030: data collected from 2025 to 2029.

Disaggregation:

The indicator is available at country level. It is disaggregated by Convention, in addition to providing the average transmission rate of the five Conventions.

Sources of discrepancies:

References

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