Countries Meet in Kenya To Thrash Out Global Plastic Pollution Treaty (theguardian.com) 30
Government delegations will gather in Nairobi, Kenya, to hammer out details of what could be the first global treaty to tackle the plastic pollution crisis. From a report: A key focus for the discussions on Monday will be whether targets to restrict plastic production should be decided unilaterally or whether states should choose their own targets; this is, say environmentalists, the "centre of gravity" for the treaty's ambition. At the last round of negotiations in Paris in May run by the international negotiating committee (INC) the US, Saudi Arabia, India and China favoured a "Paris-style" agreement where states would have the freedom to determine their own commitments, while others, including Africa and many developing countries, preferred strong global commitments.
But there are signs, some observers say, of a shift in the US's position on this key issue, though details have yet to emerge. "The main takeaway for many environmental groups, after INC2 [the negotiations in Paris], was how bad the US position was, in terms of Paris-style voluntary commitments," said Graham Forbes, the global plastics campaign lead for Greenpeace USA. He said there had been signals of a shift. "We are going to be watching very closely to see how that plays out. We need to be speaking about rules and putting in place regulations."
Last month, a "zero draft" version of the text published by the INC as the basis of negotiations over what the head of the United Nations Environment Programme has described as the most important multilateral treaty since the Paris accord in 2015. The goal is to have a formal treaty in place by the end of 2024. This third round of talks, in Kenya from 13-17 November, will mark the halfway point.
But there are signs, some observers say, of a shift in the US's position on this key issue, though details have yet to emerge. "The main takeaway for many environmental groups, after INC2 [the negotiations in Paris], was how bad the US position was, in terms of Paris-style voluntary commitments," said Graham Forbes, the global plastics campaign lead for Greenpeace USA. He said there had been signals of a shift. "We are going to be watching very closely to see how that plays out. We need to be speaking about rules and putting in place regulations."
Last month, a "zero draft" version of the text published by the INC as the basis of negotiations over what the head of the United Nations Environment Programme has described as the most important multilateral treaty since the Paris accord in 2015. The goal is to have a formal treaty in place by the end of 2024. This third round of talks, in Kenya from 13-17 November, will mark the halfway point.
Eco-Politics: Recycling Old Promises (Score:5, Insightful)
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Until someone figures out how to solve problems without going through the motions of solving a problem, even a serious attempt to tackle a problem is indistinguishable from posturing at the outset, unless you dig into the details.
Sure, it's a reasonably safe bet on an issue like this that an international effort to do something is likely not going to accomplish much until people start getting really scared. But it's not a sure thing.
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Rather than peacefully resoling this through an arduous treaty process, where each participating nation's legislature has to approve the treaty or send it back. ... military action. Sure, bombing raids cause terrible pollution in the short term, but in the long term this could be the final solution.
Let's focus on solving the world's shared ecological problems through action
Levity aside. There are problems in this would that are non-local and no single nation has the authority to intervene. This is an intern
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Yeah, it's another junket, just like the climate thing, where everybody flies in on their private jets and first class on the jumbos, discussing our future insect diet over foie gras and filet mignon and twice baked potatoes
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It's hilarious that they met in a physical place to do this rather than meeting remotely. Obviously they aren't actually concerned about pollution. I wonder how many plastic water bottles will be trashed at this save-the-world meeting.
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The problem is not the production of plastics. The actual problem is third-world shithole countries -- like Kenya -- who couldn't care less about properly disposing of their trash. And so they just dump their shit in lakes and rivers and it eventually ends up in the ocean.
Caring about polluting the environment is a luxury, it comes after things like having food, shelter, medicine, clothing, and water. Caring about pollution would likely come after things like jobs, education, and entertainment because if things suck so bad that people don't even have time to enjoy a sporting event, a music concert, or whatever then things like having piles of trash around won't bother them much. Things have to be going pretty well before people get upset about plastic floating out in the P
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Kenya has actually done quite a lot to clean up its environment. To say they don't care is clearly nonsense and flies in the face of easily verifiable facts.
You are just making excuses for not doing anything yourself, and using emotive language like "third-world shithole countries" to help readers avoid thinking too hard about it.
just link them into an big net and make little lis (Score:2)
just link them into an big net and make little lisa slurry out of what is sweep in
Oil lobbies... (Score:2)
Why do we need a summit? (Score:5, Insightful)
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for example soda companies used to change a deposit on your bottles you would bring them back the bottles would go to the plant be washed and than refilled.
Washing the various trash out of the bottles and sterilizing them for re-use is actually very water and energy intensive. If you have abundant water and cheap energy then sure, ditch the plastic. I'm not sure that applies to most places, which is why we switched from glass in the first place.
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Norway has abundance of water (and until now; also electricity), and we switched from glass to plastic for "the environment". Something about glass being heavier and require more fuel to transport, and we'd recycle all the plastic bottles, of course! :)
But we're quite close on the recycle promise, supposedly: https://www.sciencealert.com/n... [sciencealert.com]
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Flying people for a face to face meeting has nothing to do with the technical solution. Inter-government treaties do not give a shit about your ability to use teams or digitally sign a PDF.
You're conflating two different things.
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Flying people for a face to face meeting has nothing to do with the technical solution. Inter-government treaties do not give a shit about your ability to use teams or digitally sign a PDF.
It certainly goes to both the competence and the sincerity of those doing the negotiating. "Do as I say not as I do" will not actually endear you to most people.
absolutely worthless (Score:2)
I have said it many times concerning governments and politics, that governments esp. China, will NOT take responsibility for their actions and clean up.
They will all give promises/sign treaties, and many will dance around the needed solution. CHina in particular does not dance, but just out and out lies and continues on their merry w
fact check: old information (Score:2)
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China is the only country to have met, and in fact greatly exceeded, their Paris climate goals. China is about 5 years ahead of where it agreed to be, with emissions due to peak around 2025 instead of 2030.
China has also instigated many environmental improvement projects, cleaning up rivers and preventing waste being dumped.
It's everyone else that is failing to take responsibility.
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It's difficult to lie about emissions because they can be detected from space, and in neighbouring countries, and by people on the ground.
If you want to verify things like air quality numbers, just get yourself a tourist visa and head over there.