Daily Archives: January 17, 2013

Guest Blog: Winning at Win-Win Negotiation

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This is a guest blog from Lawrence Susskind, Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. Professor Susskind specializes in global environmental treaty making and the mediation of public disputes. In this post, reprinted with his permission from his blog “The Consensus Building Approach,” he explains some key lessons for good negotiation, including how to get to a positive overall outcome without compromising your personal (or your nation’s, in the case of INC5) interests.  As we near the final hours of the mercury treaty negotiations, we’ll be watching the delegates’ negotiation techniques and hope to see some of Professor Susskind’s advice at play out on the discussion floor.

by Lawrence Susskind, reprinted from The Consensus Building Approach

I hear the phrase “win-win” all the time. I’m not sure that very many people who use it know what they are talking about. I have a hunch they mistakenly assume that if everyone would just cooperate, then all parties would get what they want. That, of course, is ridiculous. There are almost no negotiations in which everyone can get everything they want. And cooperation or even compromise isn’t the issue.

Thinking Clearly About Win-Win

No one should agree to anything in a negotiation that is worse for them than what they are likely to get if no deal is reached. Roger Fisher and Bill Ury made this point thirty years ago in Getting To Yes. First, figure out what no agreement is most likely going to leave you with, try to generate something (a walk-away) that’s better than that, but when you are in an actual negotiation don’t reject something that’s better than your realistic walk-away, even if it won’t get you everything you’d like to have. Fisher and Ury called this point of comparison, your Best Alternative to the Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). A win-win negotiation is something that gets all sides an outcome better than their BATNA. It doesn’t necessarily get anyone everything that they might want.

Decision analysts (like Howard Raiffa) talk about the same idea in terms of a negotiator’s Reservation Price — the amount that they’ve decided ahead of time they won’t accept “less than” or “pay more than.” Putting aside for a moment that BATNAs and Reservation Prices are sometimes hard to estimate or “know” ahead of time, a win-win negotiation can be thought of as a deal in which all sides “gain” relative to their best estimates of their walk-aways.

Entering the Trading Zone

As many negotiation experts have explained, the beginning of a negotiation is hard because the parties all think they know what they want, all think they know what the other side(s) want and have all worked through with their own constituents what they will and won’t accept. If they then spend all their time pushing their own objectives, sometimes even exaggerating “what they have to have,” and giving arguments in anticipation of what others will say, they probably won’t get a deal. On the other hand, they have no choice but to show their “people” that they are trying hard to be victorious. So, there is a lot of wasted motion, a lot of exaggeration and a lot that’s done for show. At some point, though, usually behind-the-scenes, each party has to re-assess. “Am I going to be able to get something equal to or better than my walk-away.” “I know I can’t get everything I have demanded, but a lot of that was made up anyway.” Most people think that in a bargaining situation, you have to ask for more than what you really want so that you can make concessions and still end up with your real goal. Of course, that strategy can backfire. If your constituency hears you make outrageous opening demands and then you don’t “bring home the bacon,” it may not be possible to back down from those demands without losing face. The fact is, that if everyone were being completely honest about their most important interests (i.e. the things that are important to them in rank order), and they all felt comfortable talking about these items, the negotiators could then engage in productive joint problem-solving to see what sort of trades might (or might not) permit all parties to meet or exceed their realistic walk-aways.

If the opening of a negotiation doesn’t alienate all the parties (because one or more sides has taken an absolutely outrageous stand for tactical reasons and did so in an obnoxious way), they can then enter the “trading zone.” This is the negotiation space in which parties try out various new ideas and possible trades. “Now that I’ve heard what’s really important to you, what if I gave you X, would you give me Y?” Those kinds of linked offers are the key to creating value. If I have something you want very much and it’s not that important to me, and you have something I covet, and it is not crucial to you, when we trade those two things, that creates value. That’s not compromise. We can only do this, however, if we can find our way into the trading zone. Fisher and Ury point out that parties have to be willing to engaging in “inventing without committing” for this to happen. There are other procedures that can also be used to make this work. Once in the trading zone, though, the parties have to do all they can to explore numerous “what-if’s?” to see if they can create value. Then, once they have created all the value they possibly can, the parties need to go back and see if they can put together a “package” that ensures everyone something above their BATNA or their Reservation Price. The process gets more complicated when values or rights are involved and not just interests, but the same Mutual Gains Approach (MGA) can be used even in those situations.

What If the Parties Haven’t Done Their Homework or Aren’t Authorized to Make a “Reasonable” Deal?

The key to win-win negotiation is not compromise, it is getting into the trading zone and creating as much value as possible. If all negotiations involved just two parties and those negotiators didn’t have to report to anyone, the process would not be that difficult. But, most of the time, negotiators have someone else (often a diverse and fractious constituency) to whom they must report, and to whom they are accountable. This makes moving into the trading zone more difficult.

Think about negotiators who represent their county in a multinational treaty negotiation. Each negotiator spends months talking with different agencies and political actors inside their country, trying to reach a delicate balance on what to stress and what to sacrifice when formal multi-country negotiations begin. Then, when the negotiators sit across from each other in the big hall, each reads the script that they worked out so carefully back home. It doesn’t matter if the formal statements that each negotiator gives appear to ignore what previous speakers in the big hall have said. The fact is, that’s exactly what’s happening. The negotiator is playing to his or her home crowd. Any deviation from the pre-prepared script would probably be cause to drag the negotiator home and demand their resignation. But, at night, at the bar, when the country negotiators chat informally, new packages emerge, and new trades are explored. As the end of the two week formal negotiation period is about to draw to a close, the chair of the session hands out a revised version of the treaty text. This is quite different from the one that countries spent the previous six months reviewing. That earlier version was what they considered when they helped to write their opening speech for the big hall. Now, however, the negotiator has to call “home.” (And, in each country home is represented by a different political figure or set of actors.) They have a choice to make (and almost no time to make it). “Do we support the revised version of the treaty that the chair has sprung on the assembly at the last minute?” Yes, or no? There’s no time for further revisions, everyone has return flights scheduled in a few hours. Moreover, in an international treaty negotiation, the chair won’t ask the parties to vote. Rather, he or she will ask, “Do I hear consensus? Do you support the revised version of the proposed treaty?” It is entirely up to the chair whether he or she “hears” consensus. At the point, the country negotiators have the option of signing the document on their way out their door. Then, each negotiator has to go back to their home legislature and seek ratification (in America’s case by a vote of the United States Senate).

Think of the poor negotiator for a country that didn’t do its homework ahead of time, or didn’t give it’s negotiator any room to maneuver. They can’t have much impact on the final outcome because they can’t participate in the discussion of informal trades. Ideally, a negotiator needs to know what his or her country’s most important interests are (and which of many ways of meeting them will be OK). The negotiator may also have instructions to take a strong opening stand, but at the same time be empowered to use whatever informal channels are open to enter the informal trading zone and see what new options can be created. Until the final moments, the negotiator is just exploring “what-if’s.” When the chair produces the final draft of the proposed treaty, the negotiator needs to know who they can call to get a yes or a no (although they must be able to report that they have found a way to ensure that their country’s most important interests have been met).

How Much Can and Should You Do for the Other Side?

There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to negotiate with someone who isn’t prepared (i.e. doesn’t know what their group’s interests really are), isn’t authorized to enter into informal discussions about ways of creating value, and isn’t empowered to commit to anything other than what their group discussed before the negotiations began. If you are sitting at the table (in the big hall) with negotiators who are in one of these three positions, what can and should you do? First, even though it is awfully late in the game, you might encourage the other negotiator to be in touch with his or her group to clarify what their key interests really are. This should take the form of a BATNA or walk-away analysis. (“What are we going to be left with, realistically, if there is no agreement?” Not, what will we demand?) This will help the negotiator avoid the bad mistake of turning down “pretty good” offers. Second, you can construct several “alternative packages” for the negotiator to bring back (quickly) to his or her group. Each should spell out why and how a package will help the group meets in most important interests, and at what cost and with what risks. Third, you can coach the other negotiator a bit, teasing out for them what they might say to their constituents in response to various criticisms or complaints. Of course, if the negotiation is being managed by a neutral party (a mediator or a facilitator), then any participant can have a private conversation with that individual without having to reveal to any other parties how unprepared they really are (or how mixed up their constituency might be).

So, When Should You Compromise?

No negotiating party should ever accept an agreement that is worse for them than no agreement. But, a group may be very uncertain about how to predict what no agreement really means. (“If we don’t reach agreement now, what will happen next and what effects will that have?”) So, they might say yes to something that turns out, in retrospect, to be less desirable for them that having said no. But, no negotiator should ever agree to something that knowingly “hurts” their constituency (i.e is worse than what no agreement held in store for them) just to be liked. Good working relationships (and particularly trust) are not achieved by caving in to pressure. Rather, they are a by-product of all sides acting in what Fisher and Ury would call a “principled way.” And, I would argue that one principle of negotiation is that no one should ever “give away” their interests in the hope of “buying” a good relationship. All that will do, as Fisher and Ury point out, is teach the other parties that the same behavior be expected in the future.

“Good for You, Great for Me”

So, in actuality, a win-win outcome is one that gets all parties more than what no agreement would have guaranteed them. But, that doesn’t mean that all parties “gain the same amount.” I might like an agreement because it get’s me well above my BATNA. You might grudgingly accept my proposed agreement because it gets you more than what you are likely to get if we reach no agreement at all. Win-win agreements do no promise all sides equal or similar gains. They only promise that all sides — because they enter into the trading zone, engage in joint problem-solving, and agree to be realistic, even honest, about their highest priority interests — get an outcome that is better than their most realistic estimate of what they would have ended up with had they walked away with no agreement.

Thus, the way to “win” at “win-win” negotiation is to make sure that you come up with a proposed agreement that is “good” for other side(s) and “great” for you. You can only do this by working hard to uncover and respond to the most important interests of the other parties. Whatever “opening” stand you take (to ensure your “people” that you are fighting hard on their behalf), you have to be able to move from there into the trading zone and function effectively in that “what-iffing” environment. Then, you must have the right mandate from your “side.” That is, you need to have worked out ahead of time a clear understanding of your group’s priority interests. And, you need to know who you can call for authorization to enter into an anticipated agreement at the last minute as long as the package exceeds your group’s realistic estimate of what no agreement means to them.

 

Bioamplification, Bioaccumulation and Bioconcentration

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By: Julie van der Hoop

The confusion between bioamplification, bioaccumulation and bioconcentration is understandable. Yesterday, delegates asked for a clarification and explanation as to how this happens. These terms are not interchangeable, though they are often used as if they were. This post should clarify the situation.

bioaccumulation_graphic

Bioamplification (or biomagnification, as the picture shows) refers to an increase in the concentration of a substance as you move up the food chain. This often occurs because the pollutant is persistent, meaning that it cannot be, or is very slowly, broken down by natural processes. These persistent pollutants are transferred up the food chain faster than they are broken down or excreted.

In contrast, bioaccumulation occurs within an organism, where a concentration of a substance builds up in the tissues and is absorbed faster than it is removed. Bioaccumulation often occurs in two ways, simultaneously: by eating contaminated food, and by absorption directly from water. This second case is specifically referred to as bioconcentration.

So, what have we learned? Bioconcentration and bioaccumulation happen within an organism, but biomagnification occurs across levels of the food chain. An example: phytoplankton and other microscopic organisms take up methylmercury and then retain it in their tissues. Here, mercury bioaccumulation is occurring: mercury concentrations are higher in the organisms than it is in the surrounding environment. As animals eat these smaller organisms, they receive their prey’s mercury burden. Because of this, animals that are higher in the food chain have higher levels of mercury than they would have due to regular exposure. With increasing trophic level, mercury levels are amplified.

The INC5 Playlist…Because Every UN Conference Needs a Soundtrack

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by Danya Rumore

It’s Day 5, and we’re in what could be considered the “meat and potatoes” of the INC5 mercury treaty negotiations. With only one—or possibly two—days to go, the pressure is on.

Perhaps this is why the UNEP Convention gods (or whoever decides these things) chose to play Queen’s “Under Pressure” over the loudspeakers at the end of Tuesday’s afternoon plenary session. A stark contrast to the relatively quiet dispersal that often follows the plenary sessions, the sudden blast of music startled many of us MITers out of our late afternoon stupor. And as we filed out of the plenary room—amused by the not-so-subtle musical message—we had an epiphany: INC5 definitely needs a playlist.

This conclusion has become even more obvious throughout the negotiation proceedings of the last two days: “Under Pressure” has been played repeatedly before and after the plenary sessions.  It seems that UNEP either has yet to download iTunes or they’re seriously in need of some musical inspiration.

Thankfully, we’re here to help. Who better to consult on music than a team of nerdy MIT PhD and Masters students?

So here it is: our crowd-sourced recommendations for the INC5 negotiation’s playlist, as well as some guidance for the appropriate moments in which they should be played.

Enjoy!

The INC5 Playlist:

  1. “Under Pressure” by Queen—as the UNEP has figured out, this song is basically always appropriate in a final treaty negotiation. The Freddie Mercury connection is also amusing.
  2. “Running on Empty” by Jackson Brown—to be played during sessions going later than 11:00pm, particularly those starting after 11:00pm.
  3. “We Can Work It Out” by the Beatles—to be played at the beginning of each contact group, particularly those that have been stuck on the same issues for multiple sessions.
  4. “Communication Breakdown” by Led Zeppelin—to be played whenever one party has stated the same point 3 or more times.
  5. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Rolling Stones—to be played as a reminder that, well, you can’t always get what you want.
  6. “I Heard It through the Grapevine” by Creedence Clearwater Revival—to be played in the interpreters’ booth (look for Julie van der Hoop’s upcoming blog on this topic, you’ll see what we mean!)
  7. “Fernando” by ABBA—to show our fondness for INC5 Chair Fernando Lugris
  8. “If I Had a Million Dollars” by Barenaked Ladies—to be played during all financial assistant discussions.
  9. “Heat of the Moment” by Asia—to be played as the negotiations get intense; it’s amazing what happens when things get intense.
  10. “The Final Countdown” by Europe—to be played during the last 24 hours of the negotiation.
  11. If an agreement is reached: “Chariots of Fire” by Vangelis –triumphant celebration!  If not:  “Disappointment” by the Cranberries—you get the message.

Bonus Tracks

Just in case no agreement is reached by the end of the day on Friday and we need a little extra musical inspiration:

  1. “Spectacles” by Jenna Lindbo—to inspire some cooperation (the refrain is “”Do you wonder what things look like in other people’s eyes? I’ll take off my spectacles and give yours a try. You should put on mine. I think you might be surprised to see what the world looks like through someone else’s eyes”)
  2. “Mercury Poisoning” by Graham Parker and the Rumour—to motivate some action on a really important issue.
  3. “Running out of Time” by Hot Hot Heat— to remind the delegates that, well, they’re running out of time.

What else should be on the INC5 playlist? If you’ve got any ideas for other tunes to include, post a comment below and let us know!

 

 

Mercury Poisoning in Popular Culture

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By: Philip Wolfe

In writing for this blog, I’ve been considering the role of communication and message-building in science and science policy. I’m often surprised about the extent of people’s scientific knowledge. Last year I was in a bar in Cambridge that was having a trivia contest, and 90% of the trivia teams there were able to correctly identify the isotope of cesium used to define the second as a unit of time measurement. Now, this was not a random sampling of the US population at large (it was a heavy MIT crowd), but I still think that’s pretty amazing.

Yet, while I’ve been prepping for these negotiations, I have been speaking with friends and colleagues and many of them have no idea about the problems mercury poses to the world. How can the same group of people, a group that clearly has a good science foundation, be so unaware of something that is such a significant policy issue?

I don’t have a great answer (and I would love to hear thoughts from other people), but I thought it might be fun to look at how mercury and mercury-related health impacts are portrayed in popular culture to perhaps gain some insight.

Spoiler Alert: It’s Not Mercury

Spoiler Alert: It’s Not Mercury

It turns out there may not be a whole lot of insight to gain. Over 177 episodes of House, not once was mercury the final diagnosis, and its not like the show shied away from outré solutions. Gold, cadmium, cobalt, lead and even selenium poisoning all make it on the final diagnosis tally sheet.

In fact, mercury poisoning is rarely mentioned as even a possibility for whatever pain or illness the primary patient may have. I’ll give the writers credit, when it comes up the details are pretty accurate. In “Son of a Coma Guy,” the team guesses that seizures and visual problems could be caused by mercury exposure at a luxury yacht factory. It’s a neat throwaway fact, as mercury was formerly used in mildew-resistant paints, but that practice has been discontinued in the US since the early 90’s.

One episode of the CBS Drama The 11th Hour, in which a brilliant biophysicist solves science crimes for the FBI and stops deadly experiments (yes, that really was the premise), did look at the long lasting and potentially devastating consequences of mercury releases to lakes and watersheds. I haven’t seen the episode, but judging by the fact that the series was cancelled after just 18 episodes, I think its fair to say it wasn’t part of the cultural zeitgeist.

In movies, mercury is not represented much more. While toxic chemicals have been covered in “based on true events” movies like A Civil Action (trichloroethylene) and Erin Brockovich (hexavalent chromium), Hollywood seems to be pretty silent on mercury. The glaring exception is a wonderfully bizarre environmental agitprop horror film from the 1970s called Prophecy. In it, mercury waste from a logging company creates violent raccoons, salmon large enough to eat a duck and, worst of all, a giant bear-monster that may also be a reincarnated, evil forest spirit. What it lacks in accuracy (and it lacks a lot in accuracy) it more than makes up for in terrible special effects.

Mercury’s absence in music is a bit more understandable. “Big Issue” songs, like Joni Mitchell calling for farmers to put away their DDT, have not been in vogue over the past few decades. The Dead Kennedy’s song “Kepone Factory,” about a chemical quite similar to DDT, references the Minamata disaster. In Minamata, Japan, over 2000 people have been diagnosed with a severe neurological impairments from mercury exposure. Japanese-American composer Toshiko Akiyoshi has written a jazz suite about the Minamata disaster, but unfortunately the LP with the most acclaimed recording of this piece has not been released in the US.

I’m not sure why mercury has not been more prevalent in popular culture. The potential dangers are chilling enough and the real-life tragedies (here for example) are certainly deserving of greater acknowledgement and provide compelling narratives for art. It certainly makes it harder for scientists and policymakers to enact real change, or for victims to be compensated for that matter, because there’s such a dearth of awareness of the underlying problem.

I wonder if some celebrity took up mercury as a personal cause if it could raise the public consciousness about the issue. There is evidence that it could. In late 2008, Jeremy Piven dropped out of the Broadway revival of Speed-the-Plow, citing hydrargaria from sushi consumption. When the news broke, Google searches for “mercury poisoning” nearly doubled.

Getting a high-profile public figure to support a global treaty on mercury could be one way to improve public awareness. As a scientist though, I fear the flip side of that coin. If mercury becomes a cause célèbre overnight, there may not be enough scientifically-sound publically-available literature to properly support any nascent movement. Ask a scientist studying vaccine safety how they feel about Jenny McCarthy for an idea of how scientists can quickly find themselves unable to control a scientific conversation.

The Curious Life of a Mercury Atom

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by Bethanie Edwards

Hi, a mercury atom here. I’m currently floating in a water bottle of a delegate at the INC5 mercury negotiations in Geneva. As you know, the global community is coming together this week to negotiate ways to prevent my release into the environment. How exactly do I and my fellow mercury atoms make it into the environment to begin with? Let me share my experience with you.

For much of my life I was just a mercury atom sharing electrons with my best friend, a sulfur atom, deep in the earth as cinnabar. My potential toxicity was masked by my rosy appearance. I was expecting to spend my entire life nestled away in the Earth’s crust. But suddenly, I was startled, a loud persistent thud getting closer and closer. It was 1500 AD, and Spanish miners had just dug me out of my lithospheric home in the mountain-sides of Almaden, Spain. That’s when I began my journey, contributing to the 350,000 metric tons of mercury that humans have released into the environment over the last 4000 years.

Illustration from Erker (1574)

Illustration from Erker (1574)

After traveling to a monastery, monks began heating me up. I could feel my bond with sulfur dissipating; I was entering the vapor phase. I was collected in a distillation bulb as I evaporated, separated from the cinnabar. Little did I know, I’d soon be forced into a new partnership (albeit a brief one).

Once condensed into my liquid state and mixed with sluice from gold panning, my affinity for binding with other metals led me to bind together with all of the gold in the river bed sluice, separating the gold from the rock. When the rock was discarded the monks begin heating me up again, ending my short amalgamation with gold. However, this time as I vaporized, I escaped into the atmosphere.

The vapor pressure of mercury is very high, so I floated all the way into the upper troposphere and caught a wind current to the North Pole. Along the way I met a few other mercury atoms. Most of them had found their way into the atmosphere after weathering into rivers and then evaporating, or after being emitted from the eruption of a volcano. I bummed around in the Arctic troposphere for about 6 months.  As I recall, there were quite a few bromine atoms around. I ran into one, lost a few electrons, and then stuck to it. Then we began falling through the atmosphere, luckily there was snow to break our fall. There I waited until summer, when the snow began to melt and I was washed into a fjord.

As the summer progressed in the fjord, phytoplankton bloomed and then died. The bacterial populations began to grow exponentially and, before I knew it, the bacteria had used up all the oxygen. When bacteria deplete all the oxygen gas in an environment, they move on to using other molecules to make a living. Once they started using sulfate (SO42-), my old friend sulfur re-entered the picture. I bound with it and, not too long afterward, one of those bacteria sucked me into her cell. I’m not sure if the bacterium was just interested in the sulfur that I was attached to, or if she found me to be too toxic, but—to my horror—the bacterium quickly tore away the sulfur and stuck me with a methyl group.

Now, I’m not trying to be prejudiced against carbon, but it’s really not a good influence on me. I have enough toxicity problems on my own. And when I’m bound to an organic carbon, I can’t resist diffusing into organisms, be it fish, shellfish, or humans.  That is exactly what happened. After the water that I was residing in was re-oxygenated, a fish came along and I entered its body through the gill tissue, and as I was a methylmercury molecule by then, I wasn’t the only one to do so.

Eventually my fishy friend’s luck ran out; a fisherman caught him and cooked him up for dinner. I stayed inside the fisherman until he lived out his days and was cremated, and I was released back into the atmosphere.

I felt bad for the poor fellow but I was perfectly happy to be back in the atmosphere. I was looking forward to seeing the Arctic again. But to my surprise, I started falling to the Earth very shortly after being emitted. It must have been all the soot that I was associated with. I was deposited on the forest floor. As the seasons turned and leaves fell and decayed, I became buried in the soil. The rains came and went, but I stayed in the forest getting buried millimeter by millimeter deeper into the soil with each passing year. Until the day the fires came, that is.

Sometimes forest fires burn so hot that they scorch the soil. When this occurs, volatile elements like me can be vaporized and released into the atmosphere. While I will admit I was sequestered in the soil for quite a while, I did not expect to see so many other mercury atoms when I returned to the atmosphere. I met mercury atoms that had found their way to the atmosphere after being in fillings in people’s mouths, atoms that used to reside in light bulbs, several atoms that were used recently in gold mining in the depths of the jungle, and of course the atoms that were released from coal.

This time when I met and bound with a bromine radical, I was in the atmosphere over the Swiss Alps. Since Switzerland is a temperate region, it took much longer to get deposited than it had when I was in the Arctic. However, I eventually landed in the waters of the Alps and ultimately made it into the water bottle of an INC5 delegate.

Since I am one of 1.5×1015 mercury molecules in this water bottle alone, I sure do hope that they agree upon and sign a treaty with teeth!

 

What to Expect from INC5 Day 5 – Thursday, January 17

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By: Amanda Giang

The agenda for Day 5.

The agenda for Day 5.

It’s Day 5 of the negotiations, and the atmosphere is getting tense. Chair Lugris is pushing for some serious progress, and is expecting contact groups to produce some text by the end of day, so that tomorrow can be devoted to fine-tuning. We’re not even going to have a swiss break! We expect that plenary will be suspended early while contact groups tackle the following:

 

  • A financial mechanism for the convention. The Chair has delayed this important discussion until now, but it’s time to finally iron out exactly how the activities described in the draft treaty are going to be paid for. Looking to be a late night for @alicealpert and @jvanderhoop, who will be covering this issue.
  • Linkages between this treaty and others, and how implementation and compliance will be operationalized, covered by @wolfeyp and @amandagiang.
  • Text for how to address health in the treaty, also covered by @amandagiang and @wolfepy.
  • Finalization of technical issues, like ASGM, supply and trade of mercury (including primary mining), followed by @markdstaples and @DanyaRumore.
  • Dental amalgam—which is a particularly contentious section of the text on mercury products and processes, covered by @Bea_Edwards and @lncz.
  • Draft text for emissions and releases, with fleshing out of Annexes specifying sources and limits, followed by @NoelleSelin, @BeckySaari and @leahstokes
  • If we’re lucky, pizza! We hear our generous Swiss hosts provided some late night study negotiation snacks yesterday. As graduate students, we know nothing fuels brainpower like greasy cheese and carbs.

Don’t forget to follow @MITmercury and #MITmercury to follow the action real-time!

Forms of Mercury: Beyond the Silver Liquid

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By: Noelle Selin

It seems a bit strange to hear delegates at an intergovernmental negotiation on mercury discussing how to define “mercury.” Doesn’t the periodic table define it? Not only is mercury an element, but it’s also the reason why we’re all here in Geneva to negotiate an agreement. But defining exactly what is being addressed by the treaty is a critical issue – especially since mercury exists in many different forms in the environment.

Mercury in its liquid form is most familiar.

Mercury in its liquid form is most familiar.

The chair’s draft treaty text defines mercury as “elemental mercury”. Elemental mercury is the liquid substance that many people recall when they think of mercury. In the atmosphere, most mercury is in elemental form, but it is a gas rather than a liquid. Elemental mercury is often abbreviated as Hg(0).

Another definition in the convention is “mercury compounds,” which addresses forms of mercury other than elemental mercury. What other forms of mercury are there?

Methylmercury is of particular concern, because it is the toxic form of mercury found in fish. Mercury is converted to methylmercury in aquatic systems by sulfate- and iron-reducing bacteria. For more on the health effects of methylmercury, see our earlier post.

In addition to elemental mercury, atmospheric mercury also exists as divalent mercury. Divalent mercury, also referred to as Hg(II), is formed when elemental mercury has undergone a chemical reaction of oxidation, losing electrons. In the atmosphere, Hg(II) can bind with other elements, but scientists don’t yet know exactly what these forms are. The chemical form of Hg(II) in the atmosphere could be HgCl2, HgBr2, Hg(OH)2, or HgO. The leading candidate is HgCl2, [give the name for this?], but this is a topic of current research. When Hg(II) is measured in the atmosphere, it is referred to as reactive gaseous mercury. Forms of mercury found in the ocean include both Hg(0) and Hg(II).

Emissions from different sources release different forms of mercury. Emissions from the surface ocean and land are in the form of elemental mercury. Anthropogenic sources, such as coal power plants, can release both Hg(0) and Hg(II). This is important because the two forms of mercury have different environmental behavior.

Hg(0) lasts for a long time in the atmosphere (6 months to a year), meaning that it circulates around the globe and can travel long distances. Hg(II) can easily rain or settle out after only a few days in the atmosphere, which means it is more likely to enter the environment nearby its source. Thus, reducing Hg(II) emissions will have important local benefits, compared with reducing Hg(0), which has important global benefits.

The behavior of mercury in the environment, however, is complex. Thus, we need to use computer models [pdf] to determine how mercury changes form and travels after it is emitted. These models use the chemical and physical properties of mercury in its various forms to estimate where mercury will travel over time. Mercury deposited to the environment as Hg(II) can return to the atmosphere as Hg(0). Additionally, Hg(0) can react (oxidize) to form Hg(II) in the atmosphere, and Hg(II) can then reduce back to Hg(0). In other words, mercury can change its form. This can occur anywhere in the atmosphere, even when it is being released from power plant plumes [pdf]. Ultimately, all mercury released continues to cycle through the environment for centuries, contributing to the global mercury legacy.

Many of these reactions are not well understood by scientists, so the transport and fate of mercury in the environment is a topic of significant ongoing research.

Daily Roundup for INC5 Day 4—Wednesday, January 17

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by Mark Staples

Day 4 marked the beginning of the second half of INC5. A lot of work remains to be done before a global mercury treaty can be agreed to, and the delegates were eager to get down to work in their contact groups.

Supply and Trade, ASGM, & Waste

Work continued on Article 3 concerning supply and trade in the selected technical articles contact group, focusing specifically on the notification requirements for mercury export and import. Delegates debated the merits of a mechanism similar to prior informed consent from the Rotterdam Convention applied to the mercury trade.  While such a mechanism would give importing states more control over the mercury trade, some delegates argued that it would be too burdensome. There was also debate concerning whether or not the trade restrictions should apply to mercury compounds in addition to elemental mercury.

As the contact group worked late into the night, they were expecting to hear back from drafting groups on alternative and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) issues and primary mercury mining, and intended to finish their mandate before breaking for the night.

Products & Processes

Because they were occupied with supply and trade and ASGM issues, the contact group did not devote much time to the product and processes text. However, co-chair Abiola Olanipekun did introduce CRP 14 in the afternoon plenary, which despite many remaining brackets, will be sent to the legal group for polishing before reconsideration in the contact group.

Financial & Technical Assistance

Article 15 on financial assistance was discussed in morning plenary, with all countries agreeing that a special financial regime is needed to assist countries in implementing this convention. While finances have historically been considered a “developed vs. developing” country issue, Switzerland made the point that effective finance is in all parties’ interests. After only short discussion, Article 15 was sent to a contact group that will meet tomorrow.

After a day of small-group negotiations, a revised Article 16 on capacity building, technical assistance, and technology transfer was presented as a package to our contact group. With only a few hurdles, it was fully accepted and was presented in this afternoon’s plenary session. Chair Lugris thanked this contact group for setting the tone of progress as he sent the article off to the legal group.

Institutions & Implementation

In the morning, a separate contact group was convened to work on sections of the treaty text related to definitions, institutional linkages, and implementation—an ambitious set of topics. Before lunch, the group set to work on the definitions of mercury, mercury compounds, mercury-added products, and use allowed. While it might seem like these definitions should be fairly obvious, delegates were on the lookout for any technical or legal ambiguities that could leave the door open for loopholes or non-compliance. Definitions were agreed upon for most of these terms, with the exception of “use allowed.” In the evening, the group divided into even smaller working groups for informal negotiations on the question of implementation/compliance/implementation and compliance committees.

Emissions & Releases

Delegates working on emissions had a productive day, generating papers on what kinds of mercury emissions sources will be included in the treaty, and making progress on the issue of releases to land and water.

Annex F on the included emissions sources is now nearly complete. “Sources included” now refers specifically to point sources from major agreed-upon categories, with only two categories still up for debate: iron and steel (and secondary steel), and open burning. The group seemed to reach a consensus on control measures for new sources, and is currently discussing the complex issue of addressing existing sources.

The MIT team enjoys a Swiss Break with some new friends. Photo credit: Earth Negotiations Bulletin: http://www.iisd.ca/mercury/inc5/

The MIT team enjoys a Swiss Break with some new friends. Photo credit: Earth Negotiations Bulletin: http://www.iisd.ca/mercury/inc5/

At the Swiss break, chocolate incentives were offered to spur the delegates. In the emissions contact group, the chair brandished the reward, and good-naturedly warned the delegates that he would eat all the chocolate himself if they did not finish the draft text on emissions promptly.

Afternoon Plenary

In an address to the plenary, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, along with Swiss Environment Minister Doris Luethard, urged delegates to forge ahead and to do their best to reach agreement on the treaty text by Friday. The Minister pledged 1 million Swiss Francs as an interim contribution to the future convention on behalf of the Swiss government, and the governments of Norway and Japan each matched the pledge.

The objective is to have the draft text complete by today, Thursday, at lunch in order to complete the treaty by 6pm on Friday. Will they make it? Stay tuned to find out! We’ll be eagerly following the proceedings on Twitter (@MITMercury) and here on our blog.