As the most recent spherical of negotiations for the primary world treaty on plastic air pollution will get underway in Ottawa, Canada, concern is mounting over the affect of the petrochemicals business over the talks.
“The petrochemical business is aggressively selling false options to the plastic disaster,” the Middle for Worldwide Environmental Legislation’s (CIEL) senior lawyer, Andres del Castillo, instructed Eco-Enterprise.
“On the identical time, they’re spreading misinformation to delegations in an effort to derail the method and stop provisions which might be important to meaningfully fixing the disaster, corresponding to caps on plastic manufacturing,” he stated.
The participant listing on the final spherical of United Nations-led negotiations in November final yr, compiled by CIEL, a Washington DC-based environmental legislation non-profit, confirmed 143 fossil gas and chemical business lobbyists in attendance – a 36 per cent enhance on the earlier spherical of negotiations, signalling a ratcheting up of lobbying efforts by business.
Whereas it’s too early to gauge the extent of lobbying at this spherical of negotiations in Ottawa – the penultimate talks earlier than a closing session in Busan, Korea in November this yr – non-government organisations count on a comparable push from oil states and business to steer policymakers away from together with manufacturing cuts within the first draft of the treaty.
Petro-states together with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran had been credited with stalling the final spherical of negotiations in Nairobi, with the treaty textual content nonetheless unagreed round whether or not it will likely be based mostly on a “full lifecycle” method – in different phrases, to incorporate limits on plastic manufacturing via bans such because the one launched in Hong Kong this week.
The petrochemicals business is banking on plastic manufacturing to maintain revenue development. Petrochemicals, from which plastics are made, now account for 14 per cent of oil use, and are anticipated to drive half of oil demand development between now and 2050, in keeping with the Worldwide Vitality Company (IEA).
Environmental teams together with Greenpeace and CIEL are calling for a 75 per cent discount in plastic manufacturing by 2040 in comparison with a 2019 baseline to cease ocean air pollution and obtain local weather targets.
Plastics at the moment account for 3 to eight per cent of worldwide greenhouse fuel emissions, and are projected to devour 13 per cent or extra of the planet’s remaining carbon funds to maintain warming under 1.5°C as polymer consumption rises.
Forward of the talks in Ottawa, business gamers have been pushing recycling as a treatment to the plastic disaster, however NGOs argue that it’s a “false resolution” since solely 9 per cent of the 380 million tonnes of plastics produced yearly is recycled.
BASF, the world’s largest chemical substances agency, stated the treaty ought to embrace a “mixture of binding and non-binding parts” to stop plastic air pollution, a harmonisation of definitions and reporting procedures for the lifecycle of plastics, and foster recycling with a “technology-open” method.
“We ask the United Nations to contemplate enter from business when growing steering on plastic matters corresponding to product design, useful resource effectivity optimisation, waste administration, and use of recycled content material,” the corporate instructed Eco-Enterprise, however made no point out of measures to restrict manufacturing.
The Alliance to Finish Plastic Waste, a non-profit backed by producers together with ExxonMobil, Dow, Chevron and Shell, stated that “all components of the worth chain must be addressed” within the treaty negotiations, and added that its focus is “largely on mid- and downstream work in the direction of a round financial system”.
ExxonMobil referred Eco-Enterprise to a report printed final week by commerce physique Worldwide Council of Chemistry Associations on the impacts of a cap on virgin plastics manufacturing, which predicted “adverse results throughout business normally and on broader world economies.”
Eco-Enterprise additionally reached out to grease and fuel agency Chevron and client items agency Unilever, one of many world’s greatest customers of plastic packaging, for his or her expectations from the negotiations associated to manufacturing management. The businesses haven’t responded to queries.
A latest survey by Greenpeace discovered that international locations which might be susceptible to plastic air pollution, such the Philippines, Indonesia, India and Thailand, had been extremely in favour of cuts to plastic manufacturing to deal with the plastic disaster.
Binding treaty “unlikely”
Doug Woodring, managing director of Hong Kong-based non-profit Ocean Restoration Alliance and an observer on the talks in Ottawa, stated that the prospect of a treaty co-signed by 180 international locations was “an enormous and a big development” in the direction of preventing plastic air pollution, however he was not hopeful of a legally binding settlement.
“Will the treaty be binding? Not going. Will or not it’s voluntary? Probably,” he stated.
“Will each nation transfer on the identical tempo then? Not going. However, many will transfer and act, and others will observe, significantly when there are commerce laws carried out – which there can be.”
Woodring has beforehand argued that treaty negotiators ought to be cautious to not stymie worldwide commerce in post-consumer plastic or threat cripping an already-weak recycling market. In Asia, recyclers have been struggling to attain scale as client manufacturers have rolled again targets for recycled content material amid low oil costs.
The European Union can be one of many key territories driving minimim recycled content material limits on the treaty, Woodring stated, pointing to the EU’s plans to mandate a 25 per cent goal for recycled content material in plastic bottles by 2025 and 30 per cent by 2030.
Woodring stated Prolonged Producer Accountability (EPR) measures are prone to achieve traction within the negotiations, constructing on momentum gained in international locations such because the Philippines and Vietnam, which have lately launched such “polluter pays” legal guidelines.
“The query with EPR is which international locations get such legal guidelines carried out, and truly do it properly. The Philippines has tried, nevertheless it has loopholes for dishonest the system,” he stated.
