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

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

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

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Definitions:

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^[1]:

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 annual reporting requirements for production and consumption of controlled substances under Article 7 of the Montreal Protocol;
2. Submission of information on Licensing systems under (Article 4B of) the Montreal Protocol;
3. For each party, a percentage value is assigned to indicate how much of the required information has been submitted.

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 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 in 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 substance and the States to which it has exported each 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, will require that a Party is to review and update its implementation plan, and transmit the updated plan to the Conference of the Parties (COP) 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).

The Minamata Convention requires, under its article 17, paragraph 4, that each Party designates a National Focal Point for the exchange of information under it, including with regard to the consent of importing Parties under Article 3. Pursuant to Article 21 of the Minamata Convention, each party to the Convention shall report to the COP on the measures it has taken to implement the provisions of the Convention, on the effectiveness of such measures and on possible challenges in meeting the objectives of the Convention. In decision MC-1/8 on the Timing and format of reporting by the Parties, the COP at its first meeting (2017) agreed on the full format of reporting and decided that each Party shall report every four years using the full format and report every two years on four questions marked by an asterisk in the full format. The COP further decided on the following timing with regards to the short and full reporting: 31 December 2019 as the deadline for the first short national report; 31 December 2021 as the deadline for the first full national report.

The Montreal Protocol requires, under its Article 7, that each Party provides to the Secretariat for each controlled substance statistical data on its annual production, amounts used for feedstocks, amounts destroyed by technologies approved by the Parties, imports from and exports to Parties and non-Parties respectively and amount of the controlled substance listed in Annex E used for quarantine and pre-shipment applications, for the year during which provisions concerning those substances entered into force for that Party and for each year thereafter. Each Party shall also provide to the Secretariat statistical data on its annual emissions of trifluoromethane (HFC-23) per facility. The calculation of control levels is provided in Article 3 of the Protocol. This reporting enables monitoring of the implementation of the Protocol, and compliance with the control measures under the protocol. Additionally, under Article 4B, each party is required to establish and implement a system for licensing the import and export of new, used, recycled and reclaimed controlled substances. Each Party is required, within three months of the date of introducing its licensing system, to report to the Secretariat on the establishment and operation of that system.

For the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions the units of measurements are the transmission of information, such as the number of country contacts designated, number of national reports, national implementation plans and import responses. For each Party, a percentage value is assigned to indicate how much of the required information has been submitted.

For the Minamata Convention, the units of measurement are the number of designated national focal points and the number of national reports received. For each Party, a percentage value is assigned to indicate how much of the required information has been submitted.

For the Montreal Protocol, the units of measurement are the number of Parties that comply with their reporting obligations with regard to production and consumption of controlled substances (Article 7) and submission of information on licensing systems (Article 4B). For each party, a percentage value is assigned to indicate how much of the required information has been submitted.

Description:

1. Basel Convention: national focal points, electronic reporting system for annual national reports;
2. Rotterdam Convention: official contact points and designated national authorities, 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.

1. Focal Points and Competent Authorities for the Basel Conventions (189 Parties);
2. Designated National Authorities and Official contact points for the Rotterdam Convention (165 Parties);
3. Official contact points and national focal points for Stockholm Convention (185 Parties);
4. Focal points for Montreal Protocol (198 Parties);
5. Focal points for information exchange and national focal points for the Minamata Convention (currently 137 Parties).

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 been agreed upon under decision MC-1/8, with the deadlines for the short and full reporting: 31 December 2019 as the deadline for the first short national report and 31 December 2021 as the deadline for the first full national report. Based on the prescribed deadlines, it therefore follows that for the first short reports the reporting period covers 16 August 2017 (the date of entry into force of the Convention) to 31 December 2018 (to be submitted by 31 December 2019), and for the first full reports the reporting period covers 16 August 2017 to 31 December 2020 (to be submitted by 31 December 2021). The cycle will then be repeated, with the subsequent short reports covering 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2022 and the subsequent full reports covering 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2024, and so on.

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 point);
2. Submission of the national implementation plan (1 point);
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 annual reporting requirements for production and consumption of controlled substances under Article 7 of the Montreal Protocol (15 points per report);
2. Submission of information on Licensing systems under (Article 4B of) the Montreal Protocol (5 points).

Minamata Convention:

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

By completing the table below, countries can calculate their Country Scores for each convention and the total transmission rate.

* Points provided once (e.g. for a designation of a national focal point) are cumulative with the first year.

$Transmission\mathrm{\ }Rate=\mathrm{\ }\frac{{CS}_A+{CS}_B+{CS}_C+{CS}_D+{CS}_E}{No.\mathrm{\ }of\mathrm{\ }Conventions}\mathrm{\ }\times 100\%.$

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.

2024-07-29

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

12.4.2, 12.5.1, 3.9.1, 3.9.2 and 3.9.3.

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