Negotiators meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, this week reached agreement today on a Mercury Convention that protects human health and the environment from mercury, a toxic heavy metal. The treaty names the GEF as the lead organization charged with raising and disbursing grants for projects and programs to reduce and eliminate mercury pollution.

“The Global Environment Facility is ready, willing, and able to help carry forward the international agreement to meet this dangerous environmental threat,” said Dr. Naoko Ishii, CEO and Chairperson of the GEF. “We are proud to have worked with UNEP and international negotiators throughout the historic process of developing this mercury convention. We look forward to continuing our partnership.”

The Mercury Convention was agreed to at the fifth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee. The Committee, chaired by Fernando Lugris of Uruguay, will present the Convention text to the UNEP Governing Council for adoption next month.

“There was strong support among negotiators for the GEF to finance the new Convention,” Chairman Lugris said. “We look forward to cooperating with the GEF.”

The toxic effects of mercury on the nervous systems of humans were first identified in the 1950s in the fishing village of Minamata, Japan.  Mercury compounds dumped into Minamata Bay by a petrochemical company worked their way into shellfish and from there into seafood consumed by humans and animals. The resulting illnesses, called Minamata disease, sickened adults and led to severe deformities in newborns. Some 3,000 people contracted Minamata disease and more than 1,700 died, according to the Japanese Government.

GEF grants will support a wide range of activities under the Convention.  These activities include inventories, implementation plans and investments in technology for reduction and elimination of mercury.

Staff Correspondent :: Amidst the mad rush of holiday shoppers, street hawkers, and gridlock traffic in NYC’s Times Square, something very special is happening today.

On two huge HD screens that flank the Viacom Building on 1515 Broadway, home to MTV, Connect4Climate’s (C4C) 25-second video that opens with a quote from President Kim and features a collaboration between Eminem and Kenyan hip hop group TS1 rapping about climate issues will play throughout the day in front of the thousands of people moving through one of the world’s most famous squares.

This incredible pro bono outreach opportunity was made possible thanks to C4C’s partnerships with MTV and Artists Project Earth, a UK-based NGO that has produced the ‘Rhythms del Mundo’ charity album series with all proceeds going towards climate change projects around the world. Eminem’s remix of “Not Afraid” with TS1 is featured on the recently launched ‘Rhythms del Mundo: Africa’ CD that also includes tracks by Beyonce, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, and many more.

This creative public/private collaboration is just one example amongst many in the wide spectrum of C4C’s coalition of more than 140 knowledge partners. Launched just over a year ago by the World Bank, the Italian Ministry of Environment, and the GEF, C4C’s “campaign, coalition and community that cares about climate change” has worked to amplify the voices of local stakeholders who have stories to tell about climate change. Having built an aggregate online community approaching half a million, C4C’s goal of creating a participatory, open knowledge platform that engages the global community in climate change conversation to drive local action is now a reality.

Global Environment Facility and Connect4Climate

The Global Environment Facility has been a strong supporter of Connect4Climate and its many initiatives. As one of the three main sponsors, in line with the GEF’s youth outreach program lead by GEF EXT, and along with the Italian Environment Ministry, the GEF provided financial support and logistics in the preparation and execution of initiatives taken by C4C. In the run-up to the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP 17) in Durban in December 2011, C4C kick-started its campaign by challenging African youth from the ages of 13 to 35 to tell their personal climate change stories through photos and videos focused on six categories: Agriculture, energy, forests, gender, health, and water. The response to the first competition was impressive, with over 700 photos and videos submitted from every country on the African continent. The winning photos and videos were presented at a high-profile awards ceremony and exhibition in Durban that generated over 300 articles and blogs written in English, French, Italian, and Arabic. The winning images and videos are featured on https://www.connect4climate.orgorg  and continue to inspire others to share their own stories and offer innovative ideas for action.

Staff Correspondent ::

 “It is very reassuring to learn from this report that an initial public investment on the order of $5 billion over the next 10 to 20 years could be sufficient to catalyze many hundreds of billions of dollars in public and private finance,” said Dr. Naoko Ishii, CEO and Chairperson of the GEF.  “We now have the right tools to identify and remove those market and policy failures which have unfortunately sped up the degradation of marine environments.  Our goal is to help both the public and private sectors create clear incentives and policies which will serve to protect the world’s oceans,” she added.

 The world’s oceans and coastal areas are the source of a variety of life-sustaining goods and services—including food, transport, oil and gas, tourism, and minerals.  Marine and coastal resources directly provide at least US$3 trillion annually in global economic output.

 “Oceans are an integral part of life on earth, regulating our climate and producing oxygen for the planet, yet they are under serious threat due to pollution, over-exploitation, habitat loss, invasive species, and climate change,” said Andrew Hudson, Head of UNDP’s Water & Ocean Governance Programme. “We need to improve the way we manage the oceans, before the damage is irreversible,” he said, adding that ocean degradation threatens the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, primarily in the world’s least developed countries.

 Catalysing Ocean Finance: Transforming Markets to Restore & Protect the Global Ocean, issued jointly with the GEF, shows that the accelerating degradation of the marine environment stems primarily from market and policy failures, leading to the over-exploitation of fisheries, skyrocketing hypoxic (low oxygen) zones in coastal areas, continued introductions of destructive alien species, and increased ocean acidification.

These market and policy failures have led both the private and public sectors to under-invest in environmental protection measures, such as wastewa­ter treatment and coastal habitat protection, and over-invest in activities detrimental to the marine environment, including over-fishing and chemically intensive agri­culture.

Over the last two decades, UNDP and the GEF have successfully developed a suite of ocean strategic planning tools that have proven successful at creating enabling policy environments to catalyse investment for restoring and protecting the marine environment.

From reversing the Black Sea’s enormous ”dead zone” to reducing the risk from invasive species in ship ballast water, to moving forty percent of the world’s tuna fisheries in the Pacific towards sustainability, Catalysing Ocean Finance documents the tangible impacts of these instruments and approaches.

Using 20 years of UNDP-GEF experience on costs and impacts of ocean protection efforts as proxies, the report estimates the costs of scaling up these tools at a global level to address key ocean threats comprehensively. Catalysing Ocean Finance demonstrates how a modest investment of public finance can scale up proven ocean planning and policy tools, leverage financial flows, transform ocean markets, and reverse the global decline in ocean health.