Global Mercury Agreement

Global Mercury Agreement to Lift Health Threats from Lives of Millions World-Wide

‘Minamata’ Convention Agreed by Nations

Njenga Hakeenah

19th January 2013

Liquid Mercury (Hg) Melting Point: -38.87 °C (234.28 K, -37.966 °F)

Boiling Point: 356.58 °C (629.73 K, 673.844 °F) Photo: Credited

Governments have agreed to a global, legally-binding treaty to prevent emissions of mercury—a notorious heavy metal with significant health and environmental effects.

The International effort to address mercury release is a significant boost to controls and reductions across a range of products, processes and industries where mercury is used, released or emitted.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury—named after a city in Japan where serious health damage occurred as a result of mercury pollution in the mid-20th Century-agreed to address mercury in medical equipment such as thermometers and energy-saving light bulbs to the mining, cement and coal-fired power sectors.

The treaty also addresses the direct mining of mercury, export and import of the metal and safe storage of waste mercury.

Pinpointing populations at risk, boosting medical care and better training of health care professionals in identifying and treating mercury-related effects will also form part of the new agreement.

Mercury and its various compounds have a range of serious health impacts including brain and neurological damage especially among the young.

Others include kidney damage and damage to the digestive system. Victims can suffer memory loss and language impairment alongside many other well documented problems. More. 

Initial funding to fast track action until the new treaty comes into force in the expected three to five years’ time has been pledged by Japan, Norway and Switzerland.

Support for developing countries is also expected from the Global Environment Facility and a programme once the convention is operational.

UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Achim Steiner said, “After complex and often all night sessions here in Geneva, nations have today laid the foundations for a global response to a pollutant whose notoriety has been recognized for well over a century.”

UNEP convened the negotiations among over 140 member states in Geneva with Steiner adding that everyone in the world stands to benefit from the decisions taken in Geneva. He particularly said those would benefit the most were workers and small-scale gold miners’ families, the peoples of the Arctic and this generation of mothers and babies and the generations to come.

Steiner said he looks forward to the swift ratification of the Minamata Convention so that it comes into force as soon as possible.

Fernando Lugris, the Uruguayan chair of the negotiations praised the process saying the agreement opened a new chapter towards a sustainable future and represents an opportunity for a healthier and more sustainable century for all peoples.

Ambassador Franz Perrez of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Switzerland said the agreement will help to protect human health and the environment all over the world and is a proof that multilateralism can work when political will exists.

“This treaty will not bring immediate reductions of mercury emissions. It will need to be improved and strengthened, to make all fish safe to eat,” said David Lennett from the Natural Resources Defense Council representing the Zero Mercury Working Group a global coalition of environmental NGOs.

“Still, the treaty will phase out mercury in many products and we welcome it as a starting point.”, he concluded.

The decision to launch negotiations was taken by environment ministers at the 2009 session of the UNEP Governing Council and the final and fifth negotiation took place this week in Geneva.

The scope of the new treaty focuses on a product containing mercury including Batteries, except for ‘button cell’ batteries used in implantable medical devices, switches and relays, certain types of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), mercury in cold cathode fluorescent lamps and external electrode fluorescent lamps, soaps and cosmetics

The export and import of these products will be banned by the year 2020.

Certain kinds of non-electronic medical devices such as thermometers and blood pressure devices are also included for phase-out by 2020.

However, the Governments have approved exceptions for some large measuring devices where currently there are no mercury-free alternatives.

Vaccines where mercury is used as a preservative have also been excluded from the treaty as have products used in religious or traditional activities.

Delegates also agreed to a phase-down of the use of dental fillings using mercury amalgam among a raft of other recommendations in artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining, power generation and cement manufacturing.

The treaty has been four years in negotiation and which will be open for signature at a special meeting in Japan in October.