Canada will soon host delegates from 174 countries to negotiate the first-ever agreement to curb plastic pollution by 2040. Over five days, they will negotiate the terms of a legally binding international treaty to end it.
In a context marked by what experts describe as a global plastic crisis, countries are divided on the approach to recommend in the treaty: reducing the production of plastic products at source, or promoting better recycling and reuse practices. .
At the end of next week’s negotiations, states will also have to reduce the current draft text, 77 pages long, to finalize it at the end of the year. For its part, Ottawa says it will defend a transition to a circular plastics economy.
“This is the approach that seems most promising to us,” said a senior government official during a technical briefing to the media, a few days before the event.
“The plastic economy is linear: we produce it, we use it, then we dispose of it, which generates pollution and leads to a loss of economic value when these products end up in our landfills, he illustrated. To avoid this, we need a product lifecycle approach, aiming to encourage reuse and repair to ensure it remains in our economy for as long as possible.”
Plastic production and plastic waste are expected to triple by 2060, and up to 37 million tonnes of plastic pollution are predicted to end up in our oceans each year by 2040.
In 2022, Canada and all other United Nations member states agreed to develop a legally binding global agreement on plastic pollution by the end of 2024, including in the marine environment.
Bilateral meetings
Senior government officials have confirmed that Canada will insist on developing binding legislation, meaning countries will have to respect the treaty or face sanctions.
Other countries, however, could insist that the treaty’s objectives be optional. “We hope to conclude a binding treaty, but we do not know if it will lead to that,” said senior officials in Ottawa.
The federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, as well as around twenty foreign ministers will participate in the event.
“The rate at which we are consuming all plastics is simply unsustainable, and only by coming together can we solve the problem,” the minister said in a press release.
Quebec Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, will also be present in Ottawa.
“I remember over the five years [de mon mandat], the first major global crisis for which I attended meetings was that of climate change, and rightly so. The second is that of biodiversity. And plastic which is becoming the third of these major crises on a global scale,” he said on Wednesday.
After holding meetings in France, Uruguay and Kenya, Ottawa will host the fourth session of the committee – the largest session to date. The fifth and final session will take place from November 25 to December 1, 2024 in Busan, Republic of Korea.
With François Carabin