World must unite to cut plastic pollution, says chair of UN talks
As UN talks began yesterday to agree the first global treaty to reduce soaring plastic waste, the chair of the meetings said he was confident countries would secure an agreement.
Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK, admitted it would be a challenge to overcome an impasse between countries that produced plastic and others that had ambitions to tackle plastic pollution over its whole life.
But Valdivieso, who will chair the UN intergovernmental negotiations on an international legally binding treaty on plastic pollution in Ottawa, Canada, this week, said: “We have to face those challenges and work with them. Compromise is an important word.
“The world is in a triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. But while there are agreements in place for the first two, we have no legislation, no global agreement on plastic pollution.”
In March 2022 countries adopted a mandate opening negotiations for a treaty to address the whole life cycle of plastics. Negotiations in Nairobi stalled last November when oilproducing nations proposed to focus on waste management rather than scaling down production of plastic. Most – 98% – of single-use plastics are made from fossil fuels, and the top seven plastic-producing companies are fossil fuel companies, according to data from 2021.
Graham Forbes, the global plastic projects leader at Greenpeace USA, said: “You cannot solve the pollution crisis unless you constrain, reduce and restrict plastic production.”’
Valdivieso said he had not stopped working since the Nairobi talks to try to forge a pathway to an agreement. “It is crucial now to bring the treaty back on track,” he said.
“We are going to face some challenges and we will face more, because we are talking about plastics that are a big part of the world’s economy.
“But what is clear is we cannot manage the amount of plastic we are producing. Only 10% of it gets recycled, something needs to be done.” He added: “I am confident that we will do it.”