(Geneva) Delegates to the world’s only international forum addressing global and national chemical issues re-committed to take essential actions to fulfill a goal of sound chemicals management by 2020, but allowed the only program funding activities in the most impacted countries to expire. The USD $4 trillion/year chemical industry, which participates in the conference, also failed to offer new funds to pay their fair share for the costs of chemicals management and harm. A very small global levy on the industry of 0.1% would yield more than USD$4 billion/year.
“ICCM4 agreed to take action on some critical toxic chemical issues,” said Olga Speranskaya, Co-chair of IPEN. “However, a five-year funding gap will make it extremely difficult to implement them. This makes the need for funding urgent. Governments, financial institutions, intergovernmental organizations and the chemical industry must each pay their fair share,” she added.
An International Conference on Chemicals Management has agreed on a plan that could prevent the annual deaths of more than one million people exposed to toxic chemicals.
The cost of chemicals and waste management should be borne by business rather than aid funding, a member of the European Commission's delegation told this week's UN chemicals summit, ICCM4.
Global action to substitute Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) with safer alternatives will be on the agenda of the fourth session of the International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM4) that began at Geneva, Switzerland on Monday.
The true costs of the chemical industry's products include more than just the costs to produce them. The costs of illness and environmental devastation amount to over $1 trillion (USD) per year, paid for by the public rather than the chemical industry.