Overview
The Global Observation System for Persistent Organic Pollutants (GOS4POPs) Initiative originates from the former GEO 2012-2015 Work Plan Task HE-02 "Tracking Pollutants", established as a part of a coordinated global observation network for mercury and POPs. The Task was meant to support the international conventions on toxic compounds (i.e. Stockholm Convention (SC), UNECE Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) and on-going international programmes (e.g. UNEP Mercury Program, Global Monitoring Plan (GMP) of SC on POPs, European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP)).
Thus GOS4POPs has strong foundation in the outcomes of the previous GEO Task HE-02 C2 and aims to further develop and provide new services for stakeholder engagement, and alignment with the GEO priorities and objectives. In particular, the need for an Initiative on persistent organic pollutants is timely as the updating of the Stockholm Convention to list additional POPs has created a need for the scientific community to foster the sharing of monitoring data and modelling tools so that they are available to support implementation of the Convention. Long term and high precision observations and analysis of cycles of such pollutants in the different domains of the Earth system (atmosphere, ocean), considering also anthropogenic emissions, are furthermore required to better quantify sources and sinks; understand the impact on environment and human health and address their minimization/elimination.
Activities for the period
User engagement
Engagement with relevant user communities and other stakeholders is crucial for this Initiative, making sure its objectives are in tune with the real-world problems and its results provide adapted solutions. The GCG and ROGs responsible for the whole data collection process and communication with data owners and the GMP Expert Panel providing a scientific and policy guidance will be the crucial players. GOS4POPs will share the outcomes, lessons learned and conclusions from a series of roundtable meetings designed to identify stakeholder needs and promote collaboration between science and policy.
Future plans
This Initiative is expected to continue to contribute in different steps of the policy implementation and evaluation process of the Stockholm and LRTAP Conventions, pending the requests of Parties to the Convention. Main potential contributions are:
Resources
Secured and expected resources (cash and in-kind)
Sources of data and services.
Existing data infrastructure on POPs (GPM DWH: www.pops-gmp.org) will be the base on which new services will be developed.
Annual budget allocation
Considering expected resources, appx. 1 M€ can be considered as annual budget allocation until 2021.
Leadership
Contributors
Members: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, EC, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Sweden, UK, USA.
Participating Organizations: UNEP, WHO, World Bank (Global Environmental Facility - GEF).
Others: Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP); European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP); Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling (GAPS) Programme; Monitoring Network (MONET) Programme.
Linkages across the Work Programme
Flagships: GOS4M.
Initiatives: AirNow International.
Leadership & Contributors (this list is being populated)
Role | Name | Member/PO | Implementing Entity | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Lead | Jana Klanova | Czech Republic | RECETOX | klanova@recetox.muni.cz |
Lead | Katarina Magulova | UN Environment | UNEP | kmagulova@pops.int |