Negotiators from around the world are meeting in South Korea in a final push to hammer out a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution.
It’s the fifth time the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution has convened to craft a legally binding plastic pollution accord.
In addition to the national delegations in Busan, representatives from the plastics industry, scientists and environmentalists have come to shape how the world tackles the surging problem.
The planet is “choking on plastic”, according to the United Nations. It’s polluting lakes, rivers, oceans and people’s bodies.
“Don’t kick the can, or the plastic bottle, down the road,” UN Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen said in a message to negotiators on Monday.
This “is an issue about the intergenerational justice of those generations that will come after us and be living with all this garbage. We can solve this and we must get it done in Busan,” she said in an interview.
The previous four global meetings have revealed sharp differences in goals and interests. This week’s talks go until Saturday.
Led by Norway and Rwanda, 66 countries plus the European Union say they want to address the total amount of plastic on earth by controlling design, production, consumption and where plastic ends up.
The delegation from the hard-hit island nation of Micronesia helped lead an effort to call more attention to “unsustainable” plastic production.
Island nations are grappling with vast amounts of other countries’ plastic waste washing up on their shores.
(The New Daily)
