To avoid damage to the environment, public health and the economy, adopting targets to reduce emissions and introducing measures to enforce them is essential. Providing a framework to facilitate these measures, UNECE assists countries in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia in formulating policy responses to the air pollution challenge by ensuring the implementation and ratification of the Air Convention and its key Protocols.
In this regard, UNECE organized a national round table to discuss domestic law on air pollution control in Baku, Azerbaijan, this week (8 October 2019). The purpose of the event was to raise the political profile of the Convention and increase awareness of the benefits of accession to its Protocols and to further assist Azerbaijan in aligning its national legislation with the provisions of the Protocols and determining the next steps towards ratification.
High-level participants from the Ministries of Environment and several other Ministries and representatives from the private sector and civil society discussed the recommendations on the steps towards ratification of the key Protocols of the Convention. Participants concluded that ratification was feasible, but several steps on the way to ratification were still needed.
For more information on capacity-building under the UNECE Air Convention, please visit: http://www.unece.org/environmental-policy/conventions/envlrtapwelcome/capacity-building.html.
The Air Convention, which remains the only binding regional agreement of its kind anywhere in the world, celebrates 40 years of successful cooperation to tackle air pollution this year. Under the Convention, 51 countries in Europe and North America are cooperating to reduce deadly air pollution, achieving significant results, including the prevention of 600,000 premature deaths annually in Europe.
This week marked an important step in the Convention’s history with the entry into force of amendments to the Gothenburg Protocol, establishing legally binding emissions reduction commitments for 2020 and beyond for the major air pollutants: sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), ammonia (NH3), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5).