Highlights and images for 21 May 2019

3rd Substantive Session of the Ad Hoc Open Ended Working Group Towards a Global Pact for the Environment

Summary

Highlights for Tuesday, 21 May 2019

Delegates submitted a series of proposed changes to the Co-Chairs "zero draft" issued on Tuesday.

One year on from the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of Resolution 72/277 (“Towards a Global Pact for the Environment”) and the establishment of the open-ended working group (OEWG), delegations prepared to intensify informal negotiations at the UN Office at Nairobi. Delegations at the third substantive session of the OEWG prepared for late night informal negotiations on some of the recommendations to UNGA that will help define the pathway, the prospects and the promise of a high-level outcome. On the second day of the OEWG session, Co-Chairs Franciso António Duarte Lopes, Portugal, and Amal Mudallali, Lebanon, presented a revised version of their non-paper (25 April 2019) on recommendations to the UNGA on objectives, substantive recommendations, and the modalities for passing them on to UNGA. The new zero draft had been posted Monday evening (20 May 2019), on the basis of that day’s deliberations and submissions to the Co-Chairs, and is organised in three sections:

Guiding objectives;

Substantive recommendations; and

Recommendations to UNGA in support of taking forward the substantive recommendations.

The third and defining section on the shape of recommendations on modalities to UNGA remained in brackets. It was these options, including the adoption of an international instrument at a high-level UN conference and the establishment of a preparatory committee to make substantive recommendations to UNGA during the first half of 2020 on elements of an international instrument, which were the subject of intensive rounds of negotiations on Monday and Tuesday evenings. Proposals on the table range from a recommendation that UNGA adopt a resolution to consider an international instrument at a UN conference at Heads of State or government level by 2021--possibly marking the historic 50th anniversary of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment--to inviting UNGA to simply circulate recommendations to States and make them available to Secretariats of MEAs. The Co-Chairs' zero drafts are available here.

IISD Reporting Services, through its ENB Meeting Coverage, has provided daily web coverage and a summary and analysis report from the 3rd Substantive Session of the Ad Hoc Open Ended Working Group Towards a Global Pact for the Environment. The summary and analysis report is now available in HTML and PDF.

Photos by IISD/ENB | Natalia Mroz

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Co-Chairs Francisco António Duarte Lopes, Permanent Representative of Portugal and Amal Mudallali, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Lebanon, and Jamil Ahmad, Director, New York Office, UNEP