Nations yesterday started the clock on 10 days of talks aimed at hammering out a landmark global treaty on combating the scourge of plastic pollution.
Three years of negotiations hit the wall in South Korea in December last year when a group of oil-producing states blocked a consensus.
Since the failure in Busan, countries have been working behind the scenes and are giving it another go in Geneva, Switzerland, in talks at the UN.
Photo: EPA
Key figures steering the negotiations said they were not expecting an easy ride this time round, but insisted a deal remained within reach.
“There’s been extensive diplomacy from Busan until now,” UN Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Inger Andersen said.
The UNEP is hosting the talks, and Andersen said conversations across, between and among different regions and interest groups had generated momentum.
“Most countries, actually, that I have spoken with have said: ‘We’re coming to Geneva to strike the deal,’” he said. “Will it be easy? No. Will it be straightforward? No. Is there a pathway for a deal? Absolutely.”
Plastic pollution is so ubiquitous that microplastics have been found on the highest mountain peaks, in the deepest ocean trench and scattered throughout almost every part of the human body.
In 2022, countries agreed they would find a way to address the crisis by the end of last year, but the supposed final round of negotiations on a legally-binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the seas, flopped in Busan.
One group of countries sought an ambitious deal to limit production and phase out harmful chemicals, but a clutch of mostly oil-producing nations rejected production limits and wanted to focus more narrowly on treating waste.
Ecuadoran diplomat Luis Vayas Valdivieso, chairing the talks, said an effective, fair and ambitious agreement was now within reach.
“Our paths and positions might differ; our destination is the same,” he said. “We are all here because we believe in a shared cause: a world free of plastic pollution.”
More than 600 non-governmental organizations are attending the Geneva talks.
Valdivieso said lessons had been learned from Busan, and civil society would now have access to the discussions tackling the thorniest points, such as banning certain chemicals and capping production.
“To solve the plastic pollution crisis, we have to stop making so much plastic,” Greenpeace delegation head Graham Forbes said.
The group and its allies want a treaty “that cuts plastic production, eliminates toxic chemicals and provides the financing that’s going to be required to transition to a fossil fuel, plastic-free future,” he said. “The fossil fuel industry is here in force. We cannot let a few countries determine humanity’s future when it comes to plastic pollution.”
More than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced globally each year, half of which is for single-use items.
While 15 percent of plastic waste is collected for recycling, only 9 percent is actually recycled.
Nearly half, 46 percent, ends up in landfills, while 17 percent is incinerated, and 22 percent is mismanaged and becomes litter.
A report in The Lancet on Monday said that plastic pollution is a grave, growing danger to health, costing the world at least US$1.5 trillion a year in health-related economic losses.
The new review of existing evidence, conducted by leading health researchers and doctors, compared plastic to air pollution and lead, saying its impact on health could be mitigated by laws and policies.
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