Gabriel Sigmund & Ipek Imamoglu
The first session of the Plenary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution (ISP-CWP P1) concluded in Geneva, Switzerland on 6 February 2026. The IPCP delegation included Gabriel Sigmund and Ipek Imamoglu who also provided daily meeting summaries. Policy briefs prepared by the IPCP as inputs to the process are available here. Other IPCP board members in attendance included Noriyuki Suzuki as a member of the delegation from Japan and Miriam Diamond as the Chemicals & Waste member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel of the Global Environment Facility.
Day 5 – Finding Hope Elsewhere While Being Crushed
The last day of our journey starts under a pessimistic light: Another morning of glacially slow negotiations on the Rule of Procedures in a Contact Group (CG). At this point, our Tricorder Measurements indicate a speed of below 0.003 Rules/min. Our spacecraft is getting closer to the event horizon, our perception of time by now has become unreliable and it feels like at this point even our bodies start to stretch. The slow and painful negotiations of the CG continue on points of procedure. Even whether to conduct plenary sessions in private! At which point interventions by Observers were made.
Eventually the Plenary began at 15:50 with a delegate’s intervention regarding yesterday’s events increasing the tension and adding to the gloom in the room. Eventually the Chair reported that, after several rounds of consultations with small groups, he was not able to identify a path forward.
Those who have blocked everything for the entire week now demanded a way out to fix key issues, i.e.: the trust fund necessary to ensure continued work of the panel, and agree on a next date for the panel. Another CG was created with the sole purpose to agree on these two items. Basically, opening a bank account and agreeing on a date to meet again. These negotiations extended into the evening. No agreement to be found. Recognizing no feasible path and no reasonable will to deliver ANY outcomes, the Chair, adjourned the first meeting of the ISP-CWP P1. It will be for the partially filled Bureau to coordinate with member states and identify a new date for continuing this session, “ISPCWPP1.2” aka continue this journey into the abyss of delay. As we left the plenary disheartened and our hopes crushed, we took quick stock with a video message to confirm we were still alive. Reflecting on what happened, this is probably where we can find some hope for the future: we are still alive, and so is the panel. It is not over yet.
Hope does not come easily, but we realized late in the night, that the Plenary room was the wrong place to look for hope from the start. It is our very constructive bilateral meetings and discussions with national delegates, as well as with fellow academic and civil society observers that continue to inspire us. So this is what we will do: we will continue to engage with those that are genuinely interested in advancing the mission and spirit of the ISP-CWP, and we will continue to build bridges and collectively start working on what the panel could be, and how we as a collective from civil society can make things happen. So onward we go. Ad Astra Per Aspera, to the stars through hardships.
Policy briefs and other materials prepared by the IPCP as inputs to the process are available at: https://www.ipcp.ch/policy-briefs
https://www.ipcp.ch/publications
Video reflections on the plenary: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7425634853930532864
Longer daily reports prepared by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Earth Negotiations Bulletin are available at: https://enb.iisd.org/isp-cwp-p1-intergovernmental-science-policy-panel-chemicals-waste-pollution
Official UNEP website: https://www.unep.org/isp-cwp/plenary/session-1