NAIROBI— More than 100 nations convening in Nairobi next
week are expected to take the first steps toward establishing a historic global
treaty to tackle the plastic crisis afflicting the planet.
اضافة اعلان
Plastic has been found in
Arctic sea ice, the
bellies of whales and Earth’s atmosphere, and governments have been under
increasing pressure to unite in action against the global scourge.
Negotiators are hammering out the framework for a
legally binding plastic treaty that diplomats say is the most ambitious
environmental pact since the
2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.
“This is a big moment. This is one for the history
books,” Inger Andersen, head of the
UN Environment Program (UNEP), told AFP
this week.
The exact scope of the treaty remains to be defined.
There are competing proposals being drafted ahead of a three-day UN environment
summit starting Monday in Nairobi.
World leaders and
environment ministers meeting in-person and virtually are expected to kick
start the treaty process by appointing a negotiating committee to finalize the
policy details over the next two years.
But more than 50 countries, along with scientists,
businesses and
environment groups, have publicly called for tough new
regulations on industry to curb the torrent of plastic entering the
environment.
This could include caps on the production of new
plastic – which is made from oil and gas, and forecast to double by 2040 –
redesigning products to make recycling easier or less harmful, and phasing out
single-use items.
Many countries, including major plastic producers
like the
US and
China, have expressed general support for a treaty, but stopped
short of endorsing any specific measures.
But there is broad consensus that countries acting
alone cannot fix the problem, and a coordinated global response is needed.
Since the 1950s, the rate of plastic production has
grown faster than any other material, vastly outpacing national efforts to keep
the environment clean.
Today, approximately 300 million tons of
plastic waste – equivalent to the weight of the human population – are produced every
year.
Less than 10 percent is recycled, with most ending
up in landfill or the oceans.
By some estimates, a garbage truck’s worth of plastic is
dumped in the sea every minute, choking marine life and befouling coastlines
around the globe. Microscopic particles of plastic can also enter the food
chain, eventually joining the human diet.
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