Join GFN.TV and Michael Landl from the World Vapers Alliance as they break down COP11’s impact on tobacco harm reduction. Discover how countries challenged WHO recommendations, delayed restrictive measures, and pushed for evidence-based policies. Learn what this means for EU regulations, harm reduction strategies, and the global fight for safer nicotine alternatives.
Transcription:
00:05 - 00:49
[Joanna Junak]
Hello and welcome. I'm Joanna Junak and this is GFN News on GFN.tv. In today's program, we take a final look at COP11. Michael Landl, the director of the World Vapers Alliance, will share his thoughts on the FCCT's Conference of the Parties and how he thinks the week went. Hi Michael. First, could you tell us what the World Vapers Alliance expected to see at COP11?
00:50 - 03:00
[Michael Landl]
Yeah, we see always the same problems unfortunately with every COP because it's a very intransparent conference. There are no consumers who are allowed to speak in their voice, their opinions. There are no independent public health experts or no dissenting voices. So it's like an echo chamber and it's very anti-nicotine very anti-innovation and we always hear the same proposals and recommendations which usually boil down to more restrictions or even bands of less harmful nicotine alternatives so the goal of cop switched from reducing smoking and the harm caused by smoking to eliminating nicotine. And we think that is in general a problem because we should do everything we can to limit harms from smoking and smoking numbers. And less harmful nicotine products like vaping or nicotine pouches or heated tobacco should be part of the solution. And unfortunately, over the years of COPS, that was never the case or got less and less. And therefore, we started this year already in summer a campaign Voices Unheard to give consumers a voice and to try to... forced some of the delegations to listen to our voices, but also to the actual science, which is also ignored a lot. And therefore, this kind of lack of transparency also leads that there is less media focus on the conference itself. So if you compare, for example, the climate cop with the tobacco cop, It's a different world. There you have a lot of voices, different stakeholders, but also the general media reports about it. With the tobacco cop, everything is in secrecy. The organizational bureau decides most of the things and then they expect the countries to just say yes to all of their recommendations. But this time, luckily, it turned out a bit different.
03:02 - 03:08
[Joanna Junak]
And did there seem to be any change in how things were done at COP this time?
03:09 - 05:59
[Michael Landl]
It was more of the same, unfortunately. We don't really know what happened behind doors because it's not open for the public. So we only can rely on the final results which came out and the noises we heard from different delegations. And the WHO, the FCTC, COP Secretariat, they expected same as usual, that their recommendations get waved through and everybody will agree with them. But this time it turned out different. And a lot of countries voiced counter opinions and said harm reduction should actually play a role in tobacco control. So that was a very good sign. We had many different countries from many different regions speaking up also in the public part so that we know. We covered that quite extensively and have recordings of the statements for those who are interested on our Twitter channel. But it was countries like Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia, but then also African countries, Mozambique, Namibia, Caribbean countries, St. Kitts, they were very loud and pushed back and demanded basically two things. One of them, parts of them said they want to have harm reduction itself included as one of, as even in the COP treaty it says that harm reduction should be one pillar of tobacco control and they demanded finally to have a focus on that looking to the countries who have success with these strategies instead of ignoring them. And then we had a different part of the group. It's more the... southern part of the world or low and middle income countries who actually demanded a seat at the table, which is interesting because that we as consumers also want all the time. But within the COP, there are certain countries who feel that the highest up or the secretariat is pushing over them and they are not heard enough. So I think the WHO was a bit surprised about the backlash from the one hand, from consumers and the general public. Also, there was a bit more media attention on the COP, but also within the group. So I think this echo chamber starts to crack. Obviously, it's still on a very low level and there is a lot of room for improvement. But at least there is some steps in the right direction, which I think is encouraging. And all consumer advocates, I think, played a big role in that. But also some nation states finally started to push back against at least the worst of the measures recommended.
06:01 - 06:09
[Joanna Junak]
So looking at the agenda for the COP 11 meeting, which parts were the most threatened for tobacco harm reduction?
06:10 - 07:50
[Michael Landl]
Yeah, probably the most dangerous part was the so-called forward-looking measures. So that was recommendations from the secretariat put into a paper. And these forward-looking measures, they are forward-looking by name, but when you look at them, they are actually not. They are mainly... More restrictions or even bans. We know all this. Flavor bans, nicotine restrictions, sale bans. All those kind of things were summarized in these forward-looking measures. And surprisingly, they couldn't agree on them. So they postponed all of those measures to the next COP. which sounds like a small deal, but it's actually a big deal because now these measures will be discussed at the next COP. And until then, nobody can say, oh, WHO recommended banning flavors or something like that so that will be very helpful for national level discussions eu discussions and countries did a very good job and especially i think some of the eu countries too because we already had this fight within the eu before cop they couldn't agree on on a common position for those measures so it shows also within the eu the voices who are against this this, let's say, just ban everything approach is getting louder and stronger. And we will see what that means for the upcoming EU regulations. But for now, I think it's a very good sign that more and more countries are speaking up against this.
07:52 - 07:57
[Joanna Junak]
But do you think any of the decisions made could affect European countries?
07:58 - 10:02
[Michael Landl]
I mean, since it's on the COP level or WHO level, it's always recommendations. So it's not direct legislative. So I think actually the non-decision will have the biggest impact, which is quite good because in the EU we will have the tobacco excise directive. So where they basically decide on taxation of nicotine and tobacco products. We will have the tobacco products directive where they will decide on basically all other aspects of regulation when it comes to those products. So we will see and I hope that those cracks in the position, we will see there too. And that those countries who say, hey, we demand evidence-based policy and risk-based regulation so that those less harmful products should be treated not the same as cigarettes like the commission is pushing for that they will feel encouraged and do the same again and maybe this is the start of a more science-based and sensible discussion about regulation of those nicotine products and hopefully we will see that in the tobacco products directive and access directive as well which would be good for consumers because we want risk-based regulation. That would be apart from the health effects, the regulatory framework should also be constructed in a way that smokers have as many incentives as possible to switch to those alternatives. And obviously, lower taxation for less harmful products, for example, would be an additional incentive. And then for the tobacco products directive, we expect that the commission will push for flavor bans and those kind of things. And maybe they are also the countries who already implemented harm reduction strategies and see really good success with it, will push back and hopefully convince the other countries to stand up against the commission's proposals.
10:04 - 10:14
[Joanna Junak]
Ok, so Michael, what did World Vapers Alliance do in Geneva for the week? And what plans do you have now that COP11 has ended?
10:15 - 12:19
[Michael Landl]
Personally, I wasn't in Geneva, unfortunately. My two colleagues, Lisa and Alberto, were there at this time. They attended the Good Cop because it was another event organized by the Taxpayer Protection Alliance. And because the problem is we are not allowed to go into the actual cop. No consumers are allowed there. Most journalists are not allowed there. So we don't really know what's happening. So I think it was a very good incentive or a very good initiative to have there an alternative COP where other voices were free to speak, gave their opinion. And that's generally good. I personally, I created my own COP war room and listened to all the delegation statements. analyzed them and tweeted about them, which was exhausting. But it was in hindsight also good to see also that smaller nations speak up and listening carefully to them. So I think now for the future, it will be up to us consumers, consumer advocates, but also scientists to keep up this momentum. and spread the message because the evidence is on our side. It's quite clear from my point of view. Now the goal needs to be making politicians listen and read the actual science and draw the right conclusions. So we will do that for EU legislation, but also for COP 12, which will be held in Armenia, which was also announced. in two years. So a lot of things to do the next two years, I think will be crucial for European harm reduction, but also generally globally, because whatever the EU Commission or the EU will implement as regulation will be some kind of way for other regions in the world. So I think the next two years will be crucial. And it sounds odd, but I'm more optimistic before COP, actually.
12:21 - 12:38
[Joanna Junak]
That's very good to hear. Thank you, Michael. That's all for today. Tune in next time here on GFN TV or on our podcast. You can also find transcriptions of each episode on the GFN TV website. Thanks for watching or listening. See you next time.