News from a Changing Planet -- This Week on Earth #44
Plastic treaty negotiations are floundering, but the Biden administration makes progress in other important areas. Plus, news about wetlands and coral reefs.
WE COULD ACTUALLY END PLASTIC POLLUTION: But the U.N. and the U.S. are failing us. (NPR, Reuters)
The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee has been meeting this week (wrapping up tomorrow) in Ottawa to develop a legally binding treaty on plastic pollution. Longtime subscribers may remember that I wrote about this treaty last year (in the Washington Post and this newsletter), and some of the measures that negotiators could include in the treaty to end plastic pollution for good.
Unfortunately, the outlook from Ottawa is not good. Not only are nearly 200 fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists attending the meeting — a 37 percent increase from November’s session — at a crucial stage (there’s only one more meeting left before the final text has to be submitted for approval by participating countries), but the U.S. is basically doing nothing to ensure any kind of success for this treaty.
Good friend of the newsletter Doug McCauley spoke to NPR for a story that was published earlier this week about how the U.S., whose ambitions helped ensure that the ambition to limit warming to 1.5ºC stayed in the Paris agreement among other successes in international negotiations, has fallen down on the job.
"I don't think it's an understatement to say that where we're headed at right now with progress in negotiations is towards failure. And if there's one country that I think is responsible for that, I think it's the United States,"McCauley told NPR.
Meanwhile, a new study found that 56 companies account for more than half of the world’s plastic pollution, the largest contributor being Coca-Cola, which accounted for 11 percent of branded plastic pollution around the world. Producer responsibility…let’s try it!
NEW RULES FOR COAL PLANTS AND POLLUTION: Ending coal-fired electricity and helping communities transition away from a coal economy (Associated Press, Heatmap News)
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