Plastic endgame

The world's adoption of the resolution to end plastic pollution by 2024 is only the first step in a long battle

- MAINA WARURU KIRAN PANDEY AND SIDDHARTH GHANSHYAM SINGH

FROM ESTABLISHING a science policy panel for chemicals and waste management to agreeing to restore ecosystems, the world passed 14 resolutions at the resumed session of the fifth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), held in Nairobi, Kenya, between February 28 and March 2, 2022.

The most crucial of these was the decision to establish an intergovernmental negotiating committee that will forge a legally binding agreement to end plastic pollution. World leaders plan to start negotiations on this resolution in June. If the timeline is kept, this will be the second fastest environmental agreement to move from the adoption stage into negotiations. This highlights the urgency of the problem and the global commitment to address it. The proposed committee has the ambitious task of drafting an agreement on plastics by the end of 2024, when the leaders plan to or meet for the sixth Assembly.

Of the 11 global environmental agreements either in force under discussion, the resolution to set up the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the 1990s was the fastest. World leaders took a little less than two months to move from adopting the resolution to starting negotiations on UNFCCC. In the Paris Agreement under UNFCCC, it took over five months (see 'Swift move').

RESOLUTIONS GALORE

World leaders passed 14 resolutions to save biodiversity at the recently concluded fifth UN Environment Assembly

Resolutions adopted on

Sustainable lake management (for protection, restoration and wise use)

Nature-based solutions for supporting sustainable development (and meeting 2030 SDGs)

Sound management of chemicals and waste (to achieve SDG on health)

Sustainable nitrogen management (to halve nitrogen waste by 2030)

Biodiversity and health (biodiversity loss and zoonotic diseases linkages)