The first session of the ad hoc Open-Ended Working Group on the Science-Policy Panel (OEWG-1.2) is taking place in Bangkok, Thailand, from 30th of January to 3rd of February 2023 with a focus on the Panel’s scope and principal functions. Three IPCP Board Members are in attendance and are providing their daily recaps.
Today was another full day of work for the member state delegates in the contact groups on the scope and objective of the panel (contact group 1) and on the organization of work from now to OEWG-3 (contact group 2). Both contact groups were continued for most of the day and in a brief plenary session from 5:30 to 6:15 pm, it was decided that they will both add another session tomorrow morning. In both groups, progress was made and the final results of the work will be included in a zero draft of the meeting report to be presented and agreed on tomorrow, the last day of this OEWG meeting. Draft outlines of the zero draft are already available on the meeting website (go to “In-session Documents” tab, https://www.unep.org/oewg1.2-ssp-chemicals-waste-pollution).
In the morning, before the contact groups or the plenary start at 10 am, meetings of the UN Regional Groups are held on all days of the OEWG meeting. There are five Regional Groups: Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern European, Latin America, and Western European and Others. The Regional Groups decide if they want to open their meetings to observers and guests. Today, Penny Vlahos, Member of the IPCP Board, was invited to give a presentation to the Latin American Group about a possible structure of the new panel, which was well received.
During the day, many observers followed the work of the contact groups, but there was no role for observers to actively contribute to the process. Therefore, many observers also held meetings and engaged in conversations in the corridors throughout the day. The IPCP delegation had a long discussion with other scientists from the UK, Norway and the US about conflict-of-interest (CoI) policies and different types of CoI and how they can be distinguished. The IPCP delegation also had a conversation with Jacqueline Alvarez, Chief of UNEP’s Chemicals and Health Branch, about contributions to the intersessional process (i.e. between the OEWG meetings) that academic scientists could make, e.g. concepts for priority setting among different topics for the work of the panel or efficient extraction of relevant data from a wide range of different sources.
Longer daily reports prepared by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Earth Negotiations Bulletin are available at: https://enb.iisd.org/oewg1-2-science-policy-panel-contribute-further-sound-management-chemicals-waste-prevent-pollution
Read our next IPCP Bangkok daily briefing: https://www.ipcp.ch/news/ipcp-bangkok-briefings-day-five-oewg-1-2-meeting