NEW YORK – The Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Inger Andersen, praised on Sunday an initial “convergence” in the negotiations for the first global treaty to combat plastic pollution.
Delegations from 175 countries agreed in 2022 to finalise such a treaty by the end of 2024. The fifth and final negotiation session is scheduled to take place from November 25 to December 1 in Busan, South Korea.
“There are certain areas where I think we’re beginning to see convergence,” Inger Andersen said on Sunday to reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. She expressed hope that member states could agree on “some degree of global obligations or guidelines for plastic products.”
She also mentioned increased convergence on the need for a scientific body and certain elements of the text to address “waste management, and recycling.”
“There’s also a clear understanding that we need to have some sort of text that will deal with legacy or existing pollution, which will wash up on our shores even after we’ve turned off the proverbial plastic tap,” Andersen added.
However, some sticking points remain, particularly between nations seeking ambitious limits on plastic production and certain producing countries that prefer to focus on improving recycling efforts.
“We want to see a reduction in the production of raw polymer for that which is single use and short lived,” she said, explaining that the cap would mainly target polluting products.
Another contentious point in the discussions is a potential tax on plastic, a question that is “still in discussion” and may require more time, she indicated.
Annual plastic production has skyrocketed over the past twenty years, reaching 460 million tonnes, and is due to exacerbate by 2060 if no action is taken. For the time being, only 9% of plastics are recycled.
