Environmental Convention
- Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate
- Also known as APP, was an international, voluntary, non-legally binding public-private partnership.
- Announced on July 28, 2005 at an ASEAN Regional Forum meeting and launched on January 12, 2006 at the Partnership’s inaugural Ministerial meeting in Sydney.
Aim:
- Outline a ground-breaking new model of private-public task forces to address climate change, energy security and air pollution.
Members:
- Australia, Canada, India, Japan, the People’s Republic of China, South Korea, and the United States.
Areas of cooperation:
- cleaner fossil energy
- renewable energy and distributed generation
- power generation and transmission
- steel
- aluminum
- cement
- coal mining
- buildings and appliances
Various summits:
- The second meeting was held in New Delhi on October 15 2007 and the third in shanghai, China on October 2009.
- Partner countries agreed to co-operate on the development and transfer of technology which enables reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that is consistent with and complementary to the UNFCCC but not replace the Kyoto Protocol.
- Barcelona Convention
- Originally it was adopted as Convention for Protection of the Mediterranean Sea against Pollutionin 1976.
- Later it was amended as Barcelona Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and the Coastal Region of the Mediterraneanin 1995.
Aim:
- It is a regional convention to prevent and abate pollution from ships, aircraft and land based sources in the Mediterranean Sea.
- This includes but is not limited to dumping, run-off and discharges.
Members:
- All countries with a Mediterranean shoreline as well as the European Union.
- NGOs with a stated interest and third-party governments are allowed observer status.
About the convention:
- The Barcelona Convention and its protocols forms the basis of the Mediterranean Action Plan, itself part of the UNEP Regional Seas Programme.
- Signers agreed to cooperate and assist in dealing with pollution emergencies, monitoring and scientific research.
- The convention is applicable to the ‘Zone of the Mediterranean Sea’.
- This is defined as ‘the maritime waters of the Mediterranean as such, with all its gulfs and tributary seas, bounded to the west by the Strait of Gibraltar and to the east by the Dardanelle Strait’.
- Members are allowed to extend the application of the convention to the coastal areas within their own territory.
- Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal
Aim:
- It is an international treaty that was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations, and specifically to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries (LDCs).
Members:
- The Convention was opened for signature on 22 March 1989, and entered into force on 5 May 1992.
- 185 states and the European Union are parties to the Convention.
- Haiti and the United States have signed the Convention but not ratified it.
About the convention:
- The Convention is intended to minimize the amount and toxicity of wastes generated, to ensure their environmentally sound management.
It does not address the movement of radioactive waste.
- It monitors the source of generation, and to assist LDCs in environmentally sound management of the hazardous and other wastes they generate.
- Several regional waste trade bans, such as the Bamako Convention and Basel ban convention were adopted.
