(Paris) After the ministers, place for the negotiators: a five-day session of close discussions opens Monday in Paris in an attempt to move towards a treaty to put an end to plastic pollution.
Representatives of 175 nations with diverging ambitions are meeting at UNESCO headquarters for a second session of the international negotiating committee, out of the five scheduled to reach a historic agreement covering the entire plastic life cycle.
NGOs, but also representatives of companies in the plastics sector, to the great regret of environmental activists, will also be present to attend the debates.
A little over a year ago in Nairobi (Kenya), an agreement in principle was reached to put an end to plastic pollution in the world, with the ambition of developing by the end of 2024 a legally binding treaty under the aegis of the United Nations.
A summit with ministers or representatives of around sixty countries was organized by France on Saturday in Paris, in order to give impetus to the negotiations.
“If we do not act, in 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans,” said French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.
” Complicated ”
“Fighting plastic pollution means making our lives easier to fight climate change on the one hand and to ensure that our oceans and biodiversity are preserved,” said Minister for Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu.
The stakes are high as annual production has more than doubled in 20 years to reach 460 million tonnes (Mt). It could still triple by 2060 if nothing is done.
However, two-thirds of this global production has a short lifespan and becomes waste to be managed after just one or a few uses. 22% are abandoned (wild dumps, open-air incineration or discharge into nature) and less than 10% are recycled.
“We have to be careful that the question of recycling does not replace the debate on the reduction of plastic production,” warned Christophe Béchu.
“There is a consensus on the issues and the will to act”, welcomes AFP Diane Beaumenay-Joannet, advocacy manager of the NGO Surfrider Foundation.
She says she is “rather optimistic about the fact that we are moving forward on a draft treaty” but judges that “on the precise content of the obligations, it will be complicated, in particular on the reduction of production part”.
Reluctance
This reduction is supported by the Coalition for High Ambition, led by Rwanda and Norway and made up of around fifty jurisdictions, including the European Union, Canada, Chile and, since a few days, Japan. His hope: “to end plastic pollution by 2040”.
But other nations are more reluctant, insisting on recycling and better waste management: this is particularly the case with China, the United States, Saudi Arabia and more generally OPEC countries. , who want to protect their petrochemical industry.
The debates are also crossed by the question of North-South relations, with issues concerning “development aid, technology sharing and financing”, underlines Diane Beaumenay-Joannet.
“It is the most consuming (Western) countries that are the most polluting, and it is also those who will produce in other countries and send their waste back to other countries”, she points out.
Plastic, derived from petrochemicals, is everywhere: packaging, clothing fibers, construction equipment, medical tools, etc.
Waste of all sizes ends up at the bottom of the oceans, in sea ice, in the stomachs of birds and even on top of mountains. Microplastics have been detected in blood, breast milk or placenta.
Plastic also poses a problem for its role in global warming: it represented 1.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2019, 3.4% of global emissions, a figure that could more than double by 2060. according to the OECD.