ingenieur Vol.87 July-Sept2021 Vol 87 2021 | Page 80

INGENIEUR
INGENIEUR
into force on July 1 , 1975 . Because the trade in wild animals and plants crosses borders between countries , the effort to regulate it requires international co-operation to safeguard certain species from over-exploitation . Today , it accords varying degrees of protection to more than 37,000 species of animals and plants , whether they are traded as live specimens , fur coats or dried herbs . For many years , CITES has been among the conservation agreements with the largest membership at 183 .
Stockholm Convention
The Stockholm Convention is a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from persistent organic pollutants ( POPs ). POPs are chemicals that remain intact in the environment for long periods , become widely distributed geographically , accumulate in the fatty tissue of living organisms and are toxic to humans and wildlife . POPs circulate globally and can cause damage wherever they travel . In implementing the Convention , Governments will take measures to eliminate or reduce the release of POPs into the environment . Over 152 countries ratified the Convention and it came into force on May 17 , 2004 . The Stockholm Convention focuses on eliminating or reducing the release of POPs . It sets up a system for tackling additional chemicals identified as unacceptably hazardous . Ultimately , the Convention points the way to a future free of dangerous POPs and promises to reshape our economy ' s reliance on toxic chemicals .
Convention on Biological Diversity
The Convention on Biological Diversity ( CBD ) came into force on December 29 , 1993 . It has three main objectives : a ) the conservation of biological diversity ; b ) the sustainable use of the components of biological diversity ; and c ) the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilisation of genetic resources .
It provided an overarching framework on biodiversity , not only for the biodiversity-related conventions , but for the entire United Nations system and all other partners engaged in biodiversity management and policy development .
Basel Convention
The Basel Convention is an international treaty that was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations and specifically to prevent the transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries ( LDCs ). It does not , however , address the movement of radioactive waste . The convention is also intended to minimise the rate and toxicity of wastes generated , to ensure their environmentally sound management as closely as possible to the source of generation , and to assist LDCs in environmentally sound management of the hazardous and other wastes they generate .
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ( UNFCCC ) that commits state parties to reducing greenhouse gas emissions , based on the scientific consensus that ( part one ) global warming is occurring and ( part two ) that human-made CO 2 emissions are driving it . The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto , Japan , on December 11 , 1997 and entered into force on February 16 , 2005 . There were 192 parties ( Canada withdrew from the protocol , effective December 2012 ) to the Protocol in 2020 .
Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ( UNFCCC ), on climate change mitigation , adaptation , and finance , signed in 2016 . As of March 2021 , 191 members of the UNFCCC are parties to the agreement . The Paris Agreement ' s long-term temperature goal is to keep the rise in global average temperature to well below 2 ° C ( 3.6 ° F ) above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 ° C ( 2.7 ° F ),
78 VOL 87 JULY-SEPTEMBER 2021