Will the United Nations finally mediate a treaty to end plastic pollution?

To address what was The United Nations in the plastic “epidemic”, a committee in 2022 charged with the theft of a global agreement binding on law. This ambitious treaty among the United Nations member states was to address the full life cycle of plastic materials, from production to disposal: in short, determining what is considered plastic pollution and obscures the types of unspecified production that inevitably leads to this. But through five sessions since then, the two countries have failed to reach a consensus on the text.

What was supposed to be the last session that ended last year in Busan, South Korea without agreement, and representatives from 175 countries are now scheduled to meet again for the second part, this time in Geneva, Switzerland. INC-5.2 will be held from August 5 to 14, during which negotiators will try to see face to face around the treaties of the treaty project that has proven this so far. According to (CIEL), there are more than 370 points like this.

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Production, the use of disturbing chemicals (those that are considered risk due to toxicity and/or other characteristics), the design of products and the financing of the implementation of the treaty are some of the main points of the dispute. These issues left the two countries in ruin, according to Kate Bonassini, CIL Communications Manager. There are countries that argue that health must be excluded from the treaty. Punsini said in an e -mail that these issues will be in the forefront and medium to return to the talks, and the United Nations member states have spent the past eight months “hard work in closed door meetings to find points of agreement.” “We will see the fruits of this work soon.”

“At the heart of the issue, there is a major dispute over what plastic pollution is, and what measures need to end plastic pollution,” Bonassini said. While the commitment focuses on the full life cycle of plastic, there was a lot of conflict about where this course really started.

“As scientists, we explain the full life cycle as it begins with extraction and production,” said Bethani Carne Merhani, a professor of environmental toxicity at the University of Gothenburg and a member of the Scientists Alliance for an effective plastic treaty. “This will be fossil fuels and raw plastic production along the way to the product, for use, for trade, to transportation, to waste management, poor management and environmental pollution, including the treatment of old plastic existing.” All that. “

While more than 100 countries last December supported a treaty that would impose the limits of production, others, including Coat opponents. Before that session, according to what was reported, the United States made the decision Despite the previous evidence that it will be. It is not surprising that the countries that faced the treaty are also some of the world’s top oil producers.

“There are other actors who are trying to narrow the scope of this range to move from plastic products, such as water bottles, to waste management, so excluding the external borders of how to determine the life cycle of plastic so that, in essence, it becomes more than the Institute of Waste Management,” said Carney Al -Miroth.

External effect

In addition to representatives of the participating member states, the scientists, environmental institutions and pressure groups in the industry are for negotiating sessions. According to Carney Al-Miroth, who attended each meeting of the International Negotiating Committee (INC), and is now in Geneva for Inc-5.2, it was increasingly the pressure groups that occupy the largest area.

Banjor Winnie Corn Jones, a member of the coalition, wrote in an article recently issued by a recent article for . CIEL found that “there were more three times more than the pressure groups of fossil fuels and the chemical industry than scientists” in Busan meetings. Bonacini pointed out that “plastic is 99 percent of fossil fuels, and that these companies have a firm interest in continuing to generate products based on fossil fuels, including plastic.”

Their influence played a big role in stagnant. “They have a lot of strength, money and influence, and their efforts to pressure the negotiating space walls go beyond … they have access to decision makers in ways that other observers do not do,” said Carney Al -Miroth.

“They do not want to look at the chemicals,” said Carney Al -Miroth. “They do not want to look at production.” but Looking at chemicals (additives, helped the treatment, etc.) and production is of utmost importance, not only in the context of environmental sustainability but also human health.

In the editorial of In July, a group of scientists referred to the many possible health effects that recent studies were associated with plastic, by exposure to dangerous chemicals and delicate plastic and Neano. This includes an increase in the risk of “multiple chronic diseases, including cancer, neurological and infertility damage” as well as “respiratory, reproductive and weatherless damage, with possible lung and colon cancer.”

The authors called on the delegates to give priority to these concerns in the upcoming negotiations and work on a treaty that ends the production of toxic chemicals in plastic, prohibiting the recycling of plastic materials that contain these chemicals and reduce plastic production in general. Their message comes in addition to a separate study published this summer in the magazine Which has identified more than 4,200 chemicals for anxiety in plastic, out of a total of 16325 . The researchers argue that, in addition to creating a transparency on the composition of plastic materials and removing disturbing chemicals, plastic materials must be simplified if they become safer.

The authors write that many chemicals that enter plastic “can be released during the entire plastic life cycle, from extracting and producing raw materials to use and waste.” “The end -of -life treatment treatments, such as mobilizing the Earth or uncontrolled burning, can exacerbate chemical versions.” the Warning that the negative effects of each stage in the life cycle of plastic harm an inappropriate manner in the world, including indigenous peoples, low -income families and rural societies.

Where things stand

Today, the plastic is somewhat inevitable – it can be careful plastic now. The research increasingly indicates that we are not fully aware of the poor levels of pollution.

Global plastic production has doubled more than twice in the past 25 years, with up to higher than You can now be produced annually. Recycled plastic materials constitute only 6 percent of this total, which is the number that is expected to remain the same even with the rise in global plastic and waste generation by 70 percent by 2040, according to the International Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). And every year, tens of millions of tons of plastic waste are eliminated in ways that are not healthy in terms of environment, and ends up in not subject to dumps, in public, publicly burned or accumulated on the ground and in water surfaces.

A This summer, led by researchers from Utrecht University and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research, was published that there may be much larger plastic in the oceans than previously believed when calculating the particles smaller than accurate plastic. The team collected water samples from 12 sites across the Northern Atlantic Ocean and measuring the concentration of nanoparticles (plastic particles under 1 micrometer) at different depths. According to the researchers’ estimate, there may be up to 27 million metric tons of nanoparticles in the North Atlantic Ocean alone. This is at the previous global estimates of large plastic waste in all oceans.

In another new Researchers from Toulouse University in France have found that we might breathe up to 100 times than the microcredit molecules at home more than previous estimates, based on air -to -air plastic measurements in private apartments for researchers and cars.

Carney Al -Miroth said the situation is urgent, especially for the weak population. “The plastic quantities that we produce today and the amount of plastic in the environment are astronomical,” said Carney Al -Miroth. A few years ago, “we had a weak plastic mass on this planet as a mass of all animals on Earth, in water, including insects, and we have produced more plastic since then.”

Carney Al -Miroth said that the plastic is “an overwhelming and all our waste management infrastructure, so we are not able to prevent pollution. We were unable to reduce harm.” “The effects of plastic in the environment are very wide, to the extent that they disturb vital land functions such as climate, such as riding bicycles, such as biological diversity. Then we have the effects of human health on it. It is a sharp problem.”

Logistics services to avoid disaster

However, as the past five sessions showed, reaching an agreement on how to solve this problem will not be easy. The problem is, partly, how to make decisions. Carney and Punsini explained that everything is made through consensus instead of voting. Bonassini said this approach allows “the power to veto the decisions.”

Petrochemicals, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, India and Brazil Hold this, using “obstacle tactics” to withdraw negotiations. Some have insisted on “without legal basis”, according to Siel, that the decisions can only be made through consensus. “The consensus, however, is not the only option.

The procedure project allows the majority vote in the absence of consensus, but whether it will happen yet. “There are opportunities to force this rule,” said Carney Al -Miroth. However, a country (or countries) will have to intensify and summon it.

At this stage of negotiations, there is a risk that countries will give up the main provisions for time. Once the treaty is completed, “it may take years, if not contracts, make adjustments to the original text,” so obtaining them properly the first time is very important. International agreements that have taken a more soft approach to addressing environmental issues, such as the Paris Agreement – that allow countries to set their own goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – In the face of high global temperatures and climate change.

In June at the United Nations Oceanic Conference, representatives of 95 countries part of the African National Congress affirmed their commitment to a treaty that addresses the full life cycle of plastic materials, clarifying “the most problematic plastic products and chemicals of interest”, to improve the design of products to reduce environmental and health effects and employ effective means of implementation. “The treaty that lacks these elements, depends only on voluntary measures or does not address the full life cycle of plastic will not be effective in dealing with the challenge of plastic pollution.” The group – which includes Canada, Australia, Colombia, Zimbabwe and Germany – wrote. . These countries added that “the treaty must stipulate the possibility of making decisions, through regular United Nations measures if all efforts are exhausted to reach the consensus of opinions.”

If the agreement is not reached this time, there are a number of ways that the following steps can be done. The conversations can be extended further to another meeting, or the two countries can decide to take it elsewhere.

“Many countries are studying alternatives in the event of negotiations,” Christina Dixon, a leader in the ocean campaign, told Environmental Investigation Agency. . “The options include returning to the United Nations Environment Association (UNE) to create a new mandate for expansion, and to establish an agreement outside the United Nations for countries committed to moving forward or adopting a protocol under an existing agreement.” The following Unea meets in December.

We, as Corn Jones wrote in ConversationIn a “critical crossroads”. This is something that calls for a strong treaty based on science. “There are a lot of places where we can do a lot to make a change, and make things better,” said Carney Al -Miroth. “The countries should be ambitious, and need to stand and demand this.”