Three in four people worldwide want single-use plastics to be banned as soon as possible, a poll released yesterday showed as UN members prepare to begin talks on a global plastic pollution treaty.
The percentage of people calling for bans is up from 71 percent since 2019, while those who said they favored products with less plastic packaging rose to 82 percent from 75 percent, the IPSOS poll of more than 20,000 people across 28 countries showed.
Environmentalists say that the results send a clear message to governments meeting in Nairobi next week to press ahead with a treaty to tackle plastic waste.
Photo: Reuters
“People worldwide have made their views clear,” WWF International director-general Marco Lambertini said. “The onus and opportunity are now on governments to adopt a global plastics treaty ... so we can eliminate plastic pollution.”
Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed said they supported a treaty, but it remains to be seen whether any such deal will focus on waste collection and recycling or take more radical measures such as curbing production and use of throwaway plastics.
Reuters last week reported that big oil and chemical industry groups were devising strategies to persuade conference participants to reject any deal that would limit production of plastic, which is made from oil and gas and a key source of their revenue.
If the UN cannot agree on a deal to put the brakes on plastic pollution, there will be widespread ecological damage over the next few decades, putting some marine species at risk of extinction and destroying sensitive ecosystems such as coral reefs and mangroves, a WWF study released this month said.
It is likely to take at least two years to finalize any treaty.
Whatever is agreed at the Nairobi conference from Monday to Wednesday next week would determine key elements of any deal.
The biggest support for single-use plastic bans in the poll came from the likes of Colombia, Mexico and India, developing countries at the sharp end of a waste crisis.
The IPSOS poll also showed that 85 percent of respondents globally want manufacturers and retailers to be held responsible for reducing, reusing and recycling plastic packaging, up from 80 percent previously.
AI REVOLUTION: The event is to take place from Wednesday to Friday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center’s halls 1 and 2 and would feature more than 1,100 exhibitors Semicon Taiwan, an annual international semiconductor exhibition, would bring leaders from the world’s top technology firms to Taipei this year, the event organizer said. The CEO Summit is to feature nine global leaders from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), Applied Materials Inc, Google, Samsung Electronics Co, SK Hynix Inc, Microsoft Corp, Interuniversity Microelectronic Centre and Marvell Technology Group Ltd, SEMI said in a news release last week. The top executives would delve into how semiconductors are positioned as the driving force behind global technological innovation amid the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, the organizer said. Among them,
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said Taiwan’s government plans to set up a business service company in Kyushu, Japan, to help Taiwanese companies operating there. “The company will follow the one-stop service model similar to the science parks we have in Taiwan,” Kuo said. “As each prefecture is providing different conditions, we will establish a new company providing services and helping Taiwanese companies swiftly settle in Japan.” Kuo did not specify the exact location of the planned company but said it would not be in Kumamoto, the Kyushu prefecture in which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, 台積電) has a
RSS