The United Nations Environment Conference focuses on global plastic pollution——

The first global "plastic restriction order" is coming

From February 28 to March 2, the United Nations Environment Conference was held simultaneously online and offline in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, with more than 2000 representatives from nearly 200 member states. One of the most important topics of the meeting is to control global plastic pollution and discuss the formulation of the first global agreement to deal with the plastic crisis. Agence France Presse reported that this is an "extremely high expectation" environmental agreement since the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015.

The first phase of the fifth United Nations Environment Conference was held in February 2021. This resumed session is the second phase. The general theme is "strengthening natural action to achieve sustainable development goals", focusing on plastic pollution, green recycling and chemical waste management. "This is an important moment in history," said inger Arnold, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme

Zhang Deyuan, associate researcher of the Institute of economic system and management, Macroeconomic Research Institute of the national development and Reform Commission, introduced to this newspaper: "In order to effectively deal with the global problem of plastic pollution, the conference adopted the resolution 'ending plastic pollution: reaching a legally binding international agreement', which aims to start the establishment of an intergovernmental negotiation mechanism on the treatment of plastic pollution, including plastic pollution in the marine environment, and strive to formulate a legally binding international agreement by 2024 Through the whole life cycle method to control plastic pollution. "

In his speech, ESPEN Bart Eide, President of the United Nations Environment assembly and Minister of environment of Norway, said that the world is threatened by three major environmental crises: climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution and waste. The world is gradually recovering from the epidemic, but in the face of environmental problems, our generation has a long way to go.

According to the report released by the United Nations Environment Programme in 2021, between 1950 and 2017, about 9.2 billion tons of plastic were produced worldwide, of which the plastic recycling rate was less than 10%, and about 7 billion tons became plastic waste. It is estimated that by 2040, about 710 million tons of plastic waste will be abandoned into the natural environment every year. The US magazine scientific progress warned that in 2050, there will be more than 13 billion tons of plastic waste on earth, and the blue earth may become a "plastic planet". "At present, plastic pollution has become the focus of global environmental pollution second only to climate change, which poses a great challenge to global sustainable development. Plastic pollution in the ocean and other environments has the characteristics of cross regional transfer, and no country or region can be spared. Countries need to uphold the concept of" community with a shared future for mankind "and take extensive positive actions to deal with it 。” Zhang Deyuan said.

Zhang Deyuan believes that although plastic pollution control has become a global consensus, there are also unbalanced development among countries. Especially in the construction of plastic pollution control infrastructure and the concept of plastic pollution control, there is a large gap among countries. Financial and technological support from developing countries is urgently needed.

"China has always attached great importance to plastic pollution control." Zhang Deyuan introduced that in recent years, China has carried out the whole life cycle treatment of plastics in accordance with the concept of circular economy, established a recycling system of waste plastics covering a wide range spontaneously formed by the market, and the recycled waste plastics exceed 45% of the total amount recovered in the same period in the world. Relying on the perfect plastic industry system, China has formed a perfect recycling system covering high, medium and low-end, The utilization rate of materials is about 30%, which is at the world leading level. China has not only realized the domestic recycling of plastic waste, but also disposed and utilized 106 million tons of waste plastics from other countries from 1992 to 2018, transforming them into recycled plastic raw materials, making a great contribution to the global plastic pollution control.

"As the world's largest developing country, China will take this conference as an opportunity to further strengthen plastic pollution control and strive to contribute greater Chinese wisdom to global plastic pollution control." Zhang Deyuan said.