First steps toward global pact on plastic pollution complete
More than 2,000 experts have wrapped up a week of negotiations on plastic pollution at one of the largest global gatherings ever to address what even industry leaders in plastics say is a crisis.
It was the first meeting of a United Nations committee set up to draft what is intended to be a landmark treaty to bring an end to plastic pollution globally.
“If we look 30 years from now, we’re set to have four times more plastic. We’re in an extremely unfortunate situation. So you must have a global approach to this,” said Bjorn Beeler, who was at the meeting as the international coordinator for the International Pollutants Elimination Network, or IPEN.
Entire beaches on what used to be pristine islands are now mounded with trash. Examination of a random handful of sand in many places reveals pieces of plastic.
The United Nations Environment Programme held the five-day meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee last week in a city known for its beaches, Punta del Este, Uruguay.
Delegates from over 160 countries, plastic industry representatives, environmentalists, scientists, waste pickers, tribal leaders and others affected by the pollution attended in person or virtually. Waste pickers are seeking recognition of their work and a just transition to fairly remunerated, healthy and sustainable jobs.
Even in this first meeting of five planned over the next two years, factions came into focus. Some countries pressed for top-down global mandates, some for national solutions and others for both.
Leading the industry point of view was the American
Chemistry Council, a trade association for chemical companies. Joshua Baca, vice president of the plastics division, said companies want to work with governments on the issue because they also are frustrated by the problem.
But he said they won’t support production restrictions, as some countries want.
“The challenge is very simple. It is working to ensure that used plastics never enter the environment,” Baca said. “A topdown approach that puts a cap or a ban on production does nothing to address the challenges that we face from a waste management perspective.”
The United States, a top plastic-producing country, wants national action plans to end plastic pollution so that governments can prioritize the most important sources and types of plastic pollution.
Most plastic is made from fossil fuels. Other plasticproducing and oil and gas countries also called for putting the responsibility on individual nations. China’s delegate said it would be
hard to effectively control global plastic pollution with one or even several universal approaches.
Saudi Arabia’s delegate also said each country should determine its own action plan, with no standardization or harmonization among them. Plastic plays a vital role in sustainable development, the delegate said, so the treaty should recognize the importance of continuing plastic production while tackling the root cause of the pollution, which he identified as poor waste management.
Some referred to these countries as the “low ambition” group. Andres Del Castillo, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, said that while national plans are important, they should not be the treaty’s backbone because that’s the system — or lack of one — the world already has.
The self-named “high ambition coalition” of countries want an end to plastic pollution by 2040, using an ambitious, effective international legally-binding instrument. They’re led by Norway and Rwanda.