The second meeting of the International Negotiations Committee (INC-2) had lofty ambitions.  But the first three days of these Plastics Treaty negotiations were mired in political antics…making many representatives from Asia feel as though they were back to square one of just talk and no action on dealing with the plastic crisis.

And it seems that two camps have surfaced in these negotiations:  Those that want the treaty to be voluntary commitments like the climate change Paris agreement, and those who want a treaty with more teeth and regulations.   Any commitments under the global plastic treaty will eventually be adopted as national targets by the signatory countries, and then translated into National Action Plans to implement programs and strategies for meeting these targets. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is planning on finalizing the treaty by 2024 over the next few INC meetings…and committed at INC-2 to make the first draft treaty to discuss at INC-3.

So to continue our focus on how reuse, reduce and refill will be highlighted in the treaty negotiations….  we wanted to bring back Marian Ledesma Zero Waste Campaigner with/ Greenpeace Southeast Asia in Manila.  Marian attended the INC-22 meetings in Paris, and we wanted to get her thoughts on how that went.  We also invited Christina Dixon, Oceans Campaign Leader from the Environmental Investigation Agency to talk in more detail about the action steps and types of language needed to get the treaty moving in the reuse, refill and repair direction.

To wrap up we talk about what you listeners can do to support their efforts at the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations….

Production credits:

Host: Marcy Trent Long

Producer: Carol Mang

Contributing Editor:  Jill Baxter

Intro outro music: Alex Mauboussin

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We have partnered with Break Free From Plastic (BFFP), headquartered in Asia, to produce this series.  BFFP has numerous resources on their website about the Global Plastics Treaty and the Reuse | Refill | Repair initiative:

https:  www.breakfreefromplastic.org plastics-treaty

https:  www.breakfreefromplastic.org 2023 04 28 youth-summit-2023-global-plastics-treaty

Video Credits:

UNEP: "A once in a planet opportunity" Inger Andersen, INC-2 | Paris, France