Québec Premier Philippe Couillard, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and California Governor Edmund G. Brown on Friday, September 22, 2017 further strengthened their cooperation in the global fight against climate change.

Premier Couillard hosted Premier Wynne and Governor Brown in Québec City to sign an agreement linking the carbon markets of Québec, Ontario and California.

By signing ths agreement to integrate and harmonise emissions cap programmes, Ontario will now formally enter the Québec-California carbon market, effective January 1, 2018. This will allow all three governments to hold joint auctions of GHG emission allowances and to harmonise regulations and reporting.

Friday’s agreement will accelerate progress on the three governments’ leading work in the global fight against climate change, and demonstrates their shared commitment to achieving the objectives of the Paris Agreement as well as the value of governments working together across borders. Québec, Ontario and California will continue their efforts to promote the role of provincial and state governments on this issue, advocating for the adoption of carbon markets worldwide, including through various international partnerships.

Couillard said: “Premier Jean Charest chose to set up a carbon market in Quebec. Today, our government is taking this initiative to another level by promoting and recruiting new partners. The expertise we have developed enables Quebec to be associated with leaders in the field, to benefit from best practices, and to contribute to the development of more efficient carbon reduction technologies.”

Wynne was quoted as saying: “Climate change is a global problem that requires global solutions. Now more than ever, we need to work together with our partners at home and around the world to show how our collaboration can lead to results in this international fight. Today’s carbon market linking agreement will add to the success we have already seen in reducing GHG emissions in Ontario, Québec and California. We are stronger together and by linking our three carbon markets we will achieve even greater reductions at the lowest cost. I look forward to continuing to work with Premier Couillard and Governor Brown on our common goals, including advancing carbon markets and emissions cap programmes across North America and around the world.”

Brown submitted: “Climate change, if left unchecked, will profoundly disrupt the economies of the world and cause untold human suffering. That’s the reason why California and Québec are joining with Ontario to create an expanded and dynamic carbon market, which will drive down greenhouse gas emissions.”

It is believed that Ontario’s entry into the Western Climate Initiative carbon market with Québec and California will strengthen North America’s largest carbon market, and the only one developed and managed by federated entities from two different countries.

Together, Ontario, Québec and California’s collective market is said to be larger than any existing carbon market, except for the EU.

The WCI covers a population of more than 60 million people and about CAD$4 trillion in GDP. By linking, the three governments will harmonise regulations and reporting, while also planning and hold joint auctions of GHG emission allowances.

Emissions cap programmes combine economic development and environmental protection, reducing GHG emissions while rewarding innovative companies and creating opportunities for investment and job creation.

Programmes to put a price on carbon are expanding internationally, with several countries including China, Japan and Mexico indicating intention to launch carbon markets.

More than 150 countries are gathering in Geneva this week to mark a major milestone in their efforts to fight mercury pollution. Mercury is one of the most dangerous chemicals to human health and the environment.

Mercury is a neurotoxin with a global reach. The heavy metal is released into the environment as a result of a number of human activities. In the environment, it enters the food chain, accumulates in the body and can harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs and immune system of people of all ages. Mercury is particularly harmful to unborn children and infants whose nervous systems are under development. Damage to the brain cannot be reversed. There is no known safe exposure level for elemental mercury in humans, and effects can be seen even at very low levels.

The Parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury, which entered in to force on August 16, 2017, will now begin to implement the new global treaty which includes banning new mercury mines and phasing-out existing ones; regulating the use of mercury in artisanal and small-scale gold mining, certain industrial processes and the production of everyday items such as certain compact fluorescent lamps, batteries and teeth fillings; as well as controlling the emissions of mercury as a by-product from a range of industrial sectors – including coal combustion.

“This Convention will save lives,” said Erik Solheim, Head of UN Environment. “People around the world are being poisoned and it’s time for this to stop. Now the work begins to remove it from our industrial processes and keep it out of our bodies and our fragile ecosystems.”

Thousands of tonnes of mercury are emitted each year through releases to air, land and water. Mercury may be released naturally through the weathering of mercury-containing rocks, forest fires and volcanic eruptions. However, the most significant emissions come from human activities, particularly coal burning and artisanal and small-scale gold mining. Mining alone exposes up to 15 million workers and their families in over 70 countries to being poisoned by mercury, and this includes child labourers.

Like other heavy metals, mercury persists in the environment and builds up in human and animal tissues. Exposure to mercury occurs mainly through ingestion of fish and other marine species contaminated with methylmercury, its most toxic and bioaccumulative form. People are also exposed to elemental or inorganic mercury through inhalation of mercury vapour during occupational activities or spills or through direct contact from mercury use.

Mercury pollution is a global problem as it vaporises and can therefore be transported through the air over long distances far removed from its original emission source, polluting air, water and soil. As mercury is an element it is indestructible, and the Convention therefore also stipulates conditions for its interim storage and sound disposal once it becomes waste.

The Minamata Convention stipulates phase-out of manufacturing, import and export of these mercuryadded products by 2020. Several health care facilities in countries like South Africa, Brazil and the Philippines have demonstrated that phase out is feasible. Countries have been promoting the use of alternatives/mercury free medical devices, lessening exposure of the health professionals and the general public to mercury.

The Minamata Convention contains provisions that relate to the entire life cycle of mercury, including controls and reductions across a range of products, processes and industries where mercury is used, released or emitted. It also addresses primarymining of mercury, its export and import, its safe storage and its disposal once it is waste.

Under the Convention, countries are to:

Control mercury emissions from key industries (including coal, waste incineration, non-ferrous metals, and cement production)

Ban new mercury mining and close existing mercury mines after a period of time

Control trade in mercury

Work to reduce the use of mercury in artisanal and small scale gold mining – the largest source of mercury pollution

Promote international cooperation on mercury monitoring and innovation.

The UN Environment’s new report titled: “Global Mercury Supply, Trade and Demand” confirms artisanal and small-scale gold mining as the world’s largest source of mercury emissions (primarily in Africa, Asia and Latin America) followed by coal fire. The major mercury uses continue to be in artisanal and small-scale gold mining and for the production of vinyl chloride monomer, with these two applications responsible for over 60 percent of global mercury demand.

Artisanal and small-scale gold produces 12 to 15% of the world’s gold and employs around 15 million people, often in remote rural areas, including 4 to 5 million women and children, who often have little or no awareness of the risks posed by mercury, and safer alternativesto its use. Multiple programmes are in place to help miners shift to mercury-free mining processes, but the challenges are vast.

Signed by 128 countries and ratified by 80 countries and the European Union, the Convention takes its name from the most severe mercury poisoning disaster in history, which came to light in Minamata, Japan, in May 1956, after sustained dumping of industrial wastewaters into Minamata Bay, beginning in the 1930s. Local villages who ate fish and shellfish from the bay started suffering convulsions, psychosis, loss of consciousness and coma. In all, thousands of people were certified as having directly suffered from mercury poisoning, now known as Minamata disease.

A survivor of Minamata mercury poisoning, Shinobu Sakamoto, is attending the First meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury (COP1) which is ongoing in Geneva, Switzerland.

Sakamoto, 61, who suffered mercury poisoning while still in her mother’s womb, graces official and related events of the global confab to speak about her life and issues faced by survivors.

Minamata disease, which paralyses the central nervous system and causes birth defects, was caused by mercury-tainted water being dumped into the sea by a Chisso Corp. chemical plant in Minamata in Kumamoto Prefecture. The disease, affecting thousands, was formally acknowledged by the local health authority in 1956.

Sakamoto was just 15 when she left her home in the southern Japanese fishing village of Minamata to go to Stockholm and tell the world of the horrors of mercury poisoning.

Forty-five years on, she is apparently defying the implications of oversees travel on her health to travel again, this time to Geneva, as signatory states to the international treaty to prevent mercury pollution gather fron Sunday, September 24 to Friday, September 29.

Sakamoto is said to be one of a shrinking group of survivors from a 1950s industrial disaster in which tens of thousands of people were poisoned after waste water from a chemical plant seeped into the Minamata bay.

The waste contained a toxic organic compound, methylmercury, which can cause severe damage to the brain and nervous system, leading to a condition called Minamata disease. It gives its name to the U.N.-backed treaty that took effect last month.

Symptoms worsen with age, leaving some victims grappling with the question of who will care for them after the death of siblings and parents, while others face legal disputes.

“If I don’t say something, no one will know about Minamata disease,” said Sakamoto, who is one of the few born with the disease who is still able to talk.

“There are still so many problems, and I want people to know.”

Just 528 people survive from among the 3,000 certified victims of Minamata disease, environment ministry data shows. More than 20,000 people have sought to be designated victims, hoping for legal compensation.

“We need to take seriously the fact that there are still many people raising their hands,” said ministry official Koji Sasaki, referring to victims’ efforts to win recognition.

In a related development, Mauritius and Singapore have deposited their instruments of ratification thereby becoming the 80th and 81st Parties to the Convention.

The Convention, which aims to curb the release of mercury into the environment and establish protocols for mercury storage and disposal, came into force on August 16, 2017.