POPs air sampling devices in Colombia. Photo credit: UNEP
A new Global Environment Facility program is supporting the expansion of work to monitor the distribution of long-lasting chemicals and mercury: toxic substances that present major risks to human and environmental health.
The Global Chemicals Monitoring Programme builds on previous GEF projects aimed at supporting effectiveness evaluation of the Stockholm Convention. It responds to new requests from the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) to monitoring newly listed chemicals and an initial request from the Minamata Convention on Mercury to expand on efforts to track and phase-out dangerous pollutants.
It is the first consolidated effort to conduct global monitoring of POPs and mercury in multiple regions at the same time, a key part of work to end chemical pollution worldwide.
Approved in 2024 as part of the GEF’s eighth funding round and implemented by the UN Environment Programme, the program consists of five regional projects covering Africa, Asia, the Pacific Islands, Latin America, and the Caribbean, coordinated by a global project.
Work done under the program will help sustain and expand the Stockholm Convention’s Global Monitoring Plan, which has over the years yielded important data about the presence of POPs – a class of toxins that are termed “forever chemicals,” which linger in the environment for decades, harming the health of all living things.
From 2016 to 2024, GEF-financed UNEP monitoring projects tracked POPs in 42 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
This effort resulted in the collection and analysis of more than 900 samples of air, water, human milk, sediment, and food, expanding the geographical and analytical reach of monitoring and generating a wealth of data that contributed to the effectiveness of the Stockholm Convention’s evaluations.
While this and other past initiatives conducted under both conventions have confirmed the widespread distribution of both mercury and the original 12 POPs, new chemicals are being created all the time.
Between 2004 and 2023, 16 new POPs were incorporated into the Stockholm Convention. These range from alpha hexachlorocyclohexane, or Lindane – a broad-spectrum insecticide used for treating seeds, soils, foliage, trees, and wood against ectoparasites – to UV-328 – used in various industries including the automotive sector, to stop sunlight from fading or discoloring paints and coatings, and plastics.
Like the 12 legacy chemicals, the newly listed POPs take an exceptionally long time to break down, travel far from the point they are emitted, and accumulate in soil, water, air, and in living tissues, blood, and milk.
POPs are toxic to both humans and wildlife. They can cause cancers, allergies, hypersensitivity, and reproductive disorders, damage vital organs and the central and peripheral nervous systems, and disrupt the immune system.
Growing concern about the threat posed by these substances gave rise to the Stockholm Convention, a multilateral, legally binding treaty that came into force in 2004.
The new program is designed to help address geographical gaps in the convention’s monitoring data and to strengthen regional and national capacity to track new POPs. Some countries also need support to gather and assemble data that show variations in POP and mercury concentrations over time.
The Minamata Convention on Mercury, which took effect in 2017, was named after an area in Japan where mercury-tainted industrial wastewater poisoned thousands of people, leading to over one thousand deaths, and inflicted a crippling set of symptoms now known as the “Minamata disease.”
In humans, mercury and its compounds can harm the central nervous system, thyroid, kidneys, lungs, immune system, eyes, gums, and skin, even at very low levels of exposure. They can also cause memory loss, language impairment, and irreversible brain damage. Mercury is also harmful to wildlife, particularly fish, and contaminates wetlands and marine ecosystems.
Although mercury occurs in nature, its widespread use in human activities has caused it to spread across the planet. Work by signatory nations to achieve the goals of the Minamata treaty – monitoring included – are ultimately aimed at controlling the anthropogenic releases of mercury throughout its lifecycle.
The new program will depend on close coordination between the secretariats of both conventions, along with associated expert groups.
The objectives of the monitoring program are threefold: to create the conditions that will enable ongoing global tracking of POPs and mercury; to generate high-quality, comparable global monitoring data; and to consolidate information from across the world to facilitate broader communication and collaboration.
The improvements in tracking expected under the program will improve the breadth, depth, and availability of science-based data for both conventions, and will bolster coordination between global, regional, and national laboratories, expert institutions, and other stakeholders for long-term sustainable monitoring of these pernicious environmental toxins.
