EIA is urging significant investment in the ozone treaty, which can secure substantial additional greenhouse gas emission reductions in the near future. A new briefing “Meeting the Moment: Securing the Montreal Protocol’s Legacy in this Decisive Decade for Climate Action” analyses and provides recommendations on a variety of issues on the agenda for MOP35.
The growing momentum to address plastic pollution through global governance has seen the emergence of new international regulations on the management of plastic waste under the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal (“Basel Convention” or “the Convention”).
In March 2022, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) adopted resolution 5/14 titled “End Plastic Pollution: Towards an International Legally Binding Instrument.” The resolution convenes an intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC) to develop a new global agreement combatting plastic pollution, otherwise referred to as the global plastics treaty (GPT).
Plastics are ubiquitous in today’s world. The widespread use of plastics means plastic pollution comes from various sectors and industries, all of which use the material for bespoke applications with varying levels of risk when it comes to emissions into the environment and all of which require tailored interventions to mitigate these risks.
Using cutting-edge infrared detection equipment, EIA investigators detected high levels of fluorinated gas (F-gas) emissions at the fencelines of two production facilities in the U.S. operated by Honeywell and Chemours. Several potent greenhouse gases identified in the report have not been declared in recent years of greenhouse gas reporting to the EPA.
Plastics are ubiquitous in wild-capture fisheries and aquaculture, polluting land and sea, causing navigational hazards, blighting the coastal landscape and impacting communities and tourism when it washes ashore while often continuing to entangle and kill marine species as well as contaminating seafood for human consumption.