The global consultation, organized by UNEP, convened under UNEA Resolution 5/12 on Environmental Aspects of Minerals and Metals Management. Following five regional consultations, the purpose was to take stock of existing activities and to identify opportunities for enhanced international cooperation with the aim of developing non-prescriptive proposals to enhance the environmental management of minerals and metals along their full life cycle, in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Member States discussed and refined the non-prescriptive proposals put forward during the regional consultations. The outcomes of the global consultation will feed into the Sixth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly in February 2024.

The UNECE secretariat to the Industrial Accidents Convention participated as a speaker in the Technical Panel Discussion during the Plenary and in the side event “Critical Minerals: Cooperation for Responsibility and Sustainability”, and as an observer in other sessions. It shared information on current regulatory gaps in addressing the hazards and risks of tailings management facilities and how existing legal and policy instruments and tools, including the Industrial Accidents Convention and those developed under it, the Aarhus Convention and its Protocol on PRTRs, the United Nations Framework Classification for Resources and the United Nations Resource Management System, can be used and built on to strengthen mine tailings safety and natural resource management within the green energy transition to ensure the protection of people and the environment.

More information is available at https://www.greenpolicyplatform.org/initiatives/environmental-aspects-minerals-and-metals-management/Intergovernmental%20meetings