Critical negotiations open on February 28 in Nairobi, under the auspices of the United Nations to lead to a legally binding comprehensive agreement capable of stemming this global threat.
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After the climate, the plastic? Nearly seven years after the Paris agreement, will the international community confront this other planetary threat? A first step could be crossed at the United Nations Environmental Assembly (ANUE) in Nairobi, where the crucial negotiations on an international treaty should be opened on Monday, 28 February legally binding to combat plastic pollution. Programmed until March 2, the anue must act with the creation of an intergovernmental bargaining committee. It is this body to be responsible for developing the future treaty whose adoption could intervene at the next UN Montreal Assembly, in 2024.
For the Director General of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), INGER ANDERSEN, it is neither more nor less of the “the most important of the global environmental agenda since the agreement of Paris on climate change, in 2015 “.
The stakes are the measure of the danger. Every minute, the equivalent of a garbage truck filled with plastic waste is poured into the oceans. At the current rate, the plastic pollution of the oceans (11 million tonnes per year) will have quadrupled by 2050. pulled by the packaging sector – now led to the petro-gas industry -, the world production of Plastic should indeed more than double to flirt with the billion tons per year by 2050. Since 1950, they have been nearly 10 billion tonnes of plastic that have been produced in the world, mainly from the 2000s. More than 70% became a waste of which is in the environment or in landfills.
A threat to human health
According to UNEP, 300 million tonnes of plastic waste are generated annually on the planet scale. A danger to marine ecosystems and biodiversity: 1.4 million birds and 14,000 marine mammals are found dead each year, due to the ingestion of plastics. A threat to human health: The entire food chain is contaminated by toxic substances, including the effects of endocrine disruptors, which they propagate. Out-of-control pollution that affects every corner of the planet, up to the top of Everest or antarctic pack ice in the form of microparticles.
The plastic, because it relies on the extraction and transformation of fossil energy, also participates in global warming. In a report published in 2019, the Center for International Environmental Law (sky) believes that its annual production issues as many greenhouse gases as approximately 189 coal plants. If we add waste incineration, it could generate 56 billion tonnes of CO emissions 2 by 2050, the equivalent of 615 central. In other words, plastic could swallow between 10% and 13% of the global carbon budget not to exceed to contain the rise in temperatures at 1.5 ° C at that time.
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