From Stockholm to Minamata and Beyond: Governing Mercury Pollution for a More Sustainable Future

The 50^th anniversary of the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment provides an opportunity to reflect on mercury pollution as a sustainability issue past, present and future. The first global mercury assessment, completed in 2002, identified mercury as a global pollutant. Voluntary partnerships aiming to reduce mercury use and pollution under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) started in the mid 2000s. A second global mercury assessment report in 2013 re-confirmed the global scale of the mercury issue, as countries adopted the Minamata Convention on Mercury that same year. The most recent global mercury assessment report, including updated information on mercury discharges from different sectors and regions, was completed in 2018. Scientists and policymakers recognize that mercury is connected to global sustainability challenges, but a more comprehensive understanding of global mercury governance in the context of sustainability is needed.

A new journal article in One Earth by Henrik Selin and Noelle Eckley Selin synthesizes the existing literature and evaluates the global governance of mercury pollution in relation to sustainability. The authors examine connections between major aspects of the mercury issue and the global sustainable development agenda, over a century-long time frame (1972-2072).

Key findings:

• Fifty-year trends in mercury production, use, emissions and releases are uncertain and mixed, but national and international efforts addressing mercury-related environment and human health problems have increased in scope and stringency.
• Over the past 50 years, coal burning and artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) have become increasingly linked to sustainability challenges due to complex production and consumption patterns and an expansion of international policy.
• A global indicator of total cumulative anthropogenic discharges can provide useful information on the status of the mercury problem for global policy-making, but such an indicator cannot provide significant insight on mercury’s localized impacts on human well-being.

Looking forward, the authors argue necessary long-term interventions to address mercury pollution must be connected with broader policy debates and actions on sustainability transitions.