LocationsRemarks by Ms Beate Trankmann at the 2023 Technical Coordination Group Meeting on Stockholm Convention Implementation in China
November 8, 2023
UNDP Resident Representative in China, Beate Trankmann, delivered remarks virtually at the Technical Coordination Group meeting on the 22nd anniversary of the Stockholm Convention’s official signature for China.
尊敬的郭芳副部长,
各位代表,
女士们，先生们，大家上午好！
我很高兴代表联合国开发计划署，在中国签署《斯德哥尔摩公约》22周年暨技术协调会议上发言。
As the global leader in manufacturing, producing 28% of the world’s manufacturing output, China’s efforts to reduce persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are critically important. They have a significant impact globally on the quality of economic development, environmental protection, and progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals – our global blueprint to ensure a sustainable future for people and planet by 2030.
To this end, over the past two decades, the implementation of the Stockholm Convention in China has resulted in numerous important achievements:
·Emissions from POPs have been reduced by hundreds of thousands of tons every year.
·Hundreds of locations previously contaminated by POPs have been cleaned up.
·More than 100,000 tons of POP waste have been disposed of;
·And the level of organo-chlorine pesticides in the environment has decreased.
In addition to this critical progress, China has worked to promote the research, development, and application of environmentally-friendly technologies by issuing more than 100 relevant technical standards, and technology guidelines for 12 industries.
These efforts have made critical contributions to environmental protection, and helped to drive forward and accelerate China’s green transformation.
At UNDP, we have been working with China for 20 years to eliminate POPs in the pesticide, electronic waste, and recycled metals sectors.
Our joint projects have improved policies, technologies, and the management of POPs, while also helping to increase knowledge and public awareness of the risks and harmful effects of such chemicals.
Together with our partners we have helped collect and process more than 64 million units of e-waste, and trained over 65,000 technical workers in e-waste management. We have also provided training to farmers and agricultural workers on adapting farming techniques to align with international trading standards on the use of pesticides. This has helped increase their incomes by giving them access to new markets for selling their crops.
"In the face of the accelerating global climate emergency and with the SDGs being far off track with only seven years remaining before 2030, we cannot rest on our laurels. Rather, we must do more and raise the level of our ambitions."
In addition, we are working to address emissions originating from secondary metals, a major source of POPs. In 2016, we worked together with China to carry out a project looking at secondary copper, and moving forward we plan on implementing a similar project for lead, aluminium, lithium, and Zinc as well.
UNDP’s partnership with FECO has been integral to successfully promoting the implementation of the Stockholm Convention in China.
As an organisation with a global network across 170 countries around the world, we also attach great importance to international knowledge and experience sharing. As such, it is encouraging to see how China has become a knowledge hub for exchanging POPs-related technologies, policies, and practices with other countries.
In closing, I want to offer my congratulations to FECO and MEE on the significant progress made in China to advance environmental protection including through the management of POPs.
However, in the face of the accelerating global climate emergency and with the SDGs being far off track with only seven years remaining before 2030, we cannot rest on our laurels.
Rather, we must do more and raise the level of our ambitions.
Together, we can reach our ultimate goal of eliminating POPs once and for all – to achieve the SDGs, protect the planet, and ensure a sustainable future for generations to come.
I wish you all a successful and fruitful meeting!
预祝本次会议取得圆满成功
谢谢大家！
