Meeting the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty at #INC5 by Anja Krieger

Event Recording: How governments subsidize plastic production - QUNO/Eunomia/IUCN at INC5 by Anja Krieger

Event Recording: The Scientists' Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty at #INC5 by Anja Krieger

The saga continues: Anja and Magnus meet in Busan, South Korea, to discuss the unfolding treaty negotiations on Day 4 of the INC5.

Thanks to Grid Arendal for the travel grant!

Anja is at INC5, the final round of negotiations for the global plastics treaty. On the opening day, she asked people about their expectations - and witnessed the magic of diplomacy: Break free from brackets!

With input from (in order of appearance):

- Smail Alhilali (UNIDO)

- Anjeli Debaraja

- Jose Lopez Reyes (Dominican Republic Delegation)

- Angelica C. Pago (Greenpeace East Asia)

- Doe Johnson (International Alliance of Waste Pickers)

- Indumathi, translated by Akbar Allahbakash (Hasiru Dala)

- Shanti Tamang, translated by Janu Dangol (Trash for Peace)

- Maria Angelica Ikeda (Representative of Brasil)

- Winni Lau (Pew)

Thanks to Grid Arendal for supporting Anja's travels to South Korea with a grant!

---Guest episode by Environmental Investigation Agency's "What on Earth?" podcast series---

The fifth round of talks in pursuit of a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty kicks off in Busan, South Korea shortly – but will we emerge with an agreement capable of tackling the world’s plastic crisis or will vested interests compromise the final vision? In this excellent episode, of the "What on Earth" podcast, EIA Ocean Campaign Leader Christina Dixon and Ocean Campaigner Jacob Kean-Hammerson join Senior Press & Communications Officer Paul Newman for an update on the progress so far and a look ahead to the challenges remaining for negotiators in Busan.

Published: 19 Nov 2024

Subscribe and listen to more "What on Earth?" episodes: https://eia-international.org/podcast/

---Repost of the 2020 episode, originally titled "The Discovery of Plastic Pollution"---

As we head into the final round of negotiations towards a global plastics treaty, it's important to remember how long it took for the international community to get here. While plastic pollution has only risen to attention in the past few years, the problem really isn’t all that new. Some scientists have been aware of plastic in the ocean for over half a century. So, how was plastic pollution first discovered? And why didn’t we hear about it earlier? For this 2020 episode, Anja took a deep dive into the history of science, and spoke to the scientists who called attention to the problem long before it was widely discussed. What happened back then, and how did we get to where we are now? Ed Carpenter, Steve Rothstein, Elizabeth Venrick, Arne Holmström, Hans van Weenen and Peter Ryan share their stories.

Share the LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/meet-scientists-who-discovered-plastic-pollution-over-50-6kw5e/

Transcript and credits: https://anjakrieger.com/plastisphere/2020/07/17/ep-9-transcript/

Elena Berg is an environmental scientist and water sommelier. Her series „Something in the Water“ is a ten-part podcast mini-series on the fine water industry. As part of it, Elena addresses the elephant in the room: Plastic pollution. How much plastic is there in our drinking water? What’s the difference between tap and bottled water? And how concerned do we need to be? Elena and her guests, the anti-plastic activist Malia Elder and researcher Dr. Sherri Mason, will provide you with a lot of food for thought on social and environmental justice as well. If you’re familiar with the debate around plastic pollution and would like to go straight to the part on drinking water, you can skip the first fifteen minutes. However, the introduction is also really insightful, especially the part on closing the tap (the plastic tap, not the water tap).

If you liked this guest episode, check out the other episodes: www.pineforestpods.com/pods/something-in-the-water

The series is produced by Clark Marchese of Pine Forest Media, who recently started his own Plastic Podcast - very much worth checking out as well:

www.pineforestpods.com/pods/plastic-podcast

Thanks to Clark and Elena for sharing the episode and to their guests for their insights!

On the way to the final round of negotiations towards the global plastics treaty, things are moving fast. And there's a major development on the road to Busan, something that could change everything. Ambassador Luis Vayas, the chair of the intergovernmental negotiating committee, made a move that could help the treaty text break free from all the brackets to get the process back on track. Magnus Løvold from the Norwegian Academy of International Law just published the details on his blog, Points of Order. And one of his first readers was Rebecca Altman, an environmental sociologist from the US who's currently writing her first book on plastics. We agreed that this is too insightful not to share it with you. So Rebecca went into the studio at Brown University and recorded the audio version of Magnus' blog post for us.

This podcast is produced in the spirit of the gift economy. If you enjoy listening please support the production on https://anjakrieger.com/plastisphere/support/

Find Magnus' written blog post "a basic proposal" here: https://medium.com/points-of-order/a-basic-proposal-ad5e455c3480

Read Rebecca's writing on plastics: https://rebecca-altman.com/home

Thanks to Katie Silberman at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society for helping us record the episode - and to Dorian Roy for the music. The studio recording is by Ray Mandel-Mueller, made possible through programming by the Brown Arts Institute. Thanks for the great sound, Ray!

The final meeting to negotiate the global plastics treaty is coming up this winter. But if you’ve listened to previous episodes of our series, you know that little progress had been made in the first three INCs. At the negotiations in Uruguay, France, and Kenya, strategic games were played. They held up the process and sabotaged the road to an ambitious and binding treaty.

Now, in the run-up to the final round of negotiations in November and December in the city of Busan, in Korea - the INC-5 - we’re taking a closer look at what happened last in Ottawa. And who else could explain the INC-4 better than Magnus Løvold? He’s an expert in international treaties from the Norwegian Academy of International Law, and has attended all the meetings in person.

+++If you enjoy this series, please support the production! Go to https://anjakrieger.com/plastisphere/support/ to find out more.+++

In this episode, we are discussing clips from the live-stream of the previous meeting. You’ll get to hear from Jyoti Mathur-Filipp (Executive Secretary of the Negotiating Committee), Luis Vayas Valdivieso (INC Chair), Inger Andersen (Executive Director of UNEP), a representative of the BreakFreeFromPlastic Youth, Janelle Nahmabin (Society of Native Nations), Patrick Umuhoza (representative of Rwanda), and the Representative of Fiji.

For more insights on Ottawa, go to the Indisposable Podcast and listen to Jamala Djinn, Policy Advisor for Break Free From Plastic, and Rachel Radvany, Environmental Health Campaigner for the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL):

https://upstreamsolutions.org/podcast/toward-a-global-plastics-treaty