5. Environmental impact assessments

Thank you very much Mister Facilitator. With regard to section 5.4 entitled "Environmental impact assessment process", following from the request of the President of the Intergovernmental Conference to wherever possible reduce options, and consistent with the Group´s statement during the first session of the IGC our intervention on EIAs of 10 September 2016, at this time the Group 77 & China would like to eliminate Option I.

Thank you very much Mister Facilitator. With regard to section 5.5 entitled "Content of environmental impact assessment reports", following from the request of the President of the Intergovernmental Conference to wherever possible reduce options, at this time the Group 77 & China would move to eliminate Option I, and would see some formulation of Option II that presents a non-exhaustive list. Further, the Group 77& China have already identified a number of details regarding required content of an EIA report in our 10 September 2018 Group statement at the first session that we are pleased are reflected in Option II, noting that there are a number of items or additional content put forward in the alphabetical sub-paragraphs under paragraph (1) of Option II which raises the question of where we strike the balance of the content required for inclusion in the instrument itself. Thank you.

Thank you Mister Facilitator. With regard to section 5.6 "Monitoring, reporting and review", at this time the Group 77 & China would only like to indicate our desire to see the instrument include clear text on this topic, and thus would eliminate Option II "No text", in favor of some formulation of the Option I consistent with Article 204 of UNCLOS. Thank You.

Thank you Mister Facilitator. With regard to section 5.7 entitled "Strategic environmental assessments", the Group 77 & China is still considering this section, and therefore we would return back to you on this important topic benefitting from further reflections and discussions. Thank you.

Thank you very much Mister Facilitator. With regard to section 5.3 "Activities for which an environmental impact assessment is required", of course it is broken down into several themes for us to consider. We would note that there is still a lot of consideration on the issue of activities for which an EIA is required and on both the theme The thresholds and criteria for environmental impact assessments, and the theme List of activities that require or do not require an environmental impact assessment, we are going to have to come back to you at a later stage. We look forward to benefit from further discussion on these themes.

We would note with regard to the theme Cumulative impacts, which the Group has previously stated "cumulative effects should be taken into account . . that may increase the significance of the effect of proposed projects" in our earlier intervention during the first session of the Intergovernmental Conference so we are pleased to see it here.

With regard to the theme "Transboundary Impacts", the Group has previously stated and recalls the intervention in September 2018 in which "we consider that it is valuable to identify which potential impacts are relevant to assess . . . including transboundary impacts". At this time as we have moved from a more conceptual stage to one seeing the text in front of us the Group is going to keep an open mind on this issue as well, and we may come back to you in the future on this.

Thank you very much Mister Facilitator. On behalf of the Group 77 & China, with regard to section 5.2 entitled "Relationship to environmental impact assessment processes under relevant instruments, frameworks and bodies" taking note of paragraph (1) there are no specific options provided in the document, but we note its importance. With regard to the remainder of the section we note under paragraph (2) that there is a certain preference for Option II, but bringing in some language from Option I which reaffirms the importance of the relevant global, regional and sectoral bodies, and existing relevant instruments.

Moving forward to section 5.1 entitled "Obligation to conduct environmental impact assessments", the Group 77 & China could work under some formulation of Option I within paragraph (1). We are still considering the other paragraphs and so may come back to you on them benefitting from further discussions. Thank you.