UN works towards a legal framework to limit plastic pollution
09/03/2022
The resolution signs into being a committee, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), which is tasked with drafting the clauses for a legal framework by the end of 2024.
In its conclusions, the Environmental programme of the UN notes with concern that high and rapidly increasing levels of plastic pollution represent a serious environmental problem at a global scale, negatively impacting the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development.” It recognises the specific impacts of plastic pollution on the marine environment, and throughout its full lifecycle.
Plastic pollution has soared from two million tonnes in 1950, to 348 million tonnes in 2017. It is expected to double its impact on global economies (already valued at $522.6 billion) by 2040.
“Plastic pollution has grown into an epidemic. With today’s resolution we are officially on track for a cure,” declared Espen Barth Eide, President of the Assembly, and Norway’s Minister for Climate and the Environment.
Image: Photo by Naja Bertolt Jensen on Unsplash
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