The UN global plastic treaty could be as important as the 2015 Paris accords, if negotiators can stand up to industry lobbyistsast week, in an enormous convention centre in downtown Ottawa, I joined delegates who have been negotiating over the most important environmental deal since the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change.
It was Inger Andersen, the UN Environment Programme executive director, who compared the deal to the Paris accords – and she’s right. The need to confront plastic pollution head-on is urgent because plastic pollution contributes to the three greatest global environmental crises of our time: the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and chronic pollution. The effects of plastic pollution on human health are becoming clearer.
in which the authors argue that reducing virgin plastic production is the quickest and most cost-effective way to reduce plastic pollution. For me and many others, this approach has compelling logic, as not creating so much plastic in the first place would eliminate the climate and biodiversity impacts of the “avoided” plastic.Inger Andersen, UN Environment Programme executive director, and Canada’s environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, at the talks on 23 April 2024.