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In the resolution of March 2, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) agreed to the formation of an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, which will meet starting in the middle of this year. Its mission is to create a draft of the treaty by 2024. This would be the most important environmental agreement in the world since the one agreed in Paris in 2015.
In Nairobi, Kenya, 175 nations endorsed a landmark document. It’s about the Resolution ‘End plastic pollution’ (in Spanish, end plastic pollution). The pact aims to achieve the first treaty on the subject that is legally binding for all countries. This was achieved after the proposal presented by Peru and Rwanda, and that of Japan.
The discussion is not minor. According to the UNEP, if there are no effective actions against this type of pollution, the entire chain of conventional plastics could be responsible for 15% of greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050. This would especially impact aquatic ecosystems, since the 85% of marine debris is from plastics; while the number of tons that is dumped each year into the seas and oceans could triple by 2040 and quadruple by 2050.
And it is precisely these consequences that the UNEP resolution seeks to combat. To understand the importance of the document, France 24 en Español interviewed María Alejandra González, WWF regional coordinator for plastics in Latin America and the Caribbean. She explained that plastic pollution is one of the factors contributing to the sixth mass extinction of biodiversity. “The importance of the agreement is that it recognizes that the problem is of a transboundary nature and that this pact is needed to stop this contamination,” she added.
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