This article provides a summarized analysis the great challenge of cleaning the oceans from plastic and the central role it plays in climate change action, focusing on the Pacific Ocean and on the international cooperation efforts that are currently taking place there and on what can be additionally done in terms of international cooperation in the pacific to create more progress towards a cleaner ocean.
Multiple scientific research reports have made public the reality that plastic waste represents major threat to marine life, which can be harmed by ingesting it or becoming entangled by it, with the additional danger of the chemicals that are present in such plastic products ending up being consumed through the use of water supplies in the region.
Many reports have additionally alerted to the fact that microplastics today are present in most water supplies and in great parts of the world’s oceans and causing many cases of illnesses such as cancer due to their ingestion in water by humans, with the plastic pollution of the oceans being thus also a national security issue.
It´s precisely in the Pacific Ocean where the majority of plastic pollution is taking place globally, where countries such as the Philippines create more sea plastic pollution than all of Europe.
Regional reports point already to the fact that the plastic waste situation is already taking its toll on the health of the societies of Pacific states, degrading important ecosystems and threatening the food security of many states that hold large parts of the world’s population such as Indonesia and the Philippines.
It should also be understood that part of the challenge of plastic waste is the fact that its production is deeply connected with the oil sector given the fact that it is mostly derived from fossil fuels, with its mass production contributing greatly to carbon emissions and with UN reports projecting that greenhouse gas emissions associated with the plastic lifecycle will account for 15 % of global carbon emissions by 2050, up from 3% today.
Recently, in March 2022, a new framework has been passed by the UN Environment Assembly prioritizing the importance of dealing internationally with plastic pollution in the oceans- a central pollution problem that affects the world and that plays a big part on climate change.
The “End Plastic Pollution” resolution has thus been passed with the intent of creating a diplomatic framework for international cooperation to negotiate agreements to control the ongoing pollution of the oceans.
Additionally, the UNEA President- Espen Barth Eide has further called the resolution, which was passed unanimously the most relevant international agreement in the effort to control and thwart world pollution to combat climate change since the Paris Agreement.
The current effort in the UN represents a positive change that will have an deep impact in international law-making procedures and changes to better the international cooperation on the issue of plastic pollution in the oceans, having already established through it a working group of representatives that are cooperating to organize an international committee that has set the strategic objective of establishing an agreement by the end of 2024.
This effort will accelerate the establishment of standards of reporting and financing waste management initiatives internationally and create a platform for discussions that will have into account the different national agendas on economics and trade of all of the participating states.
However, this effort alone won’t be enough to end the 400 million tons of plastic waste that are produced yearly, with reports by climate change researchers predicting that if nothing is done this figure will only double by 2040, with product packaging accounting for the biggest share of the plastic waste, being more than 3 times the waste of the textile industry which is also highly pollutant for the oceans according to a study by Sciences Advances.
The great challenge regarding plastic pollution and its control is the fact that its durability-a characteristic that effectively makes plastic extremely difficult for the nature to break down- has effectively made plastics a mainstay of modern capitalist global consumerism, making it very hard for economies to simply put abandon the supply chain of plastic production given the fact that it is connected to almost every industry.
The consumption of plastic most firstly be put under a control and gradually lowered through the decades and the focus of international cooperation must be directed towards the countries that produce the most waste.
A scientific research report found data that demonstrated that China, India and the Philippines produce the most mismanaged waste which the type of plastic waste that has the highest risk of entering the sea and that such quantities of waste end up in the oceans primarily due to poor waste management infrastructure.
It should be taken into account however that developed states from the West and the global north are also deeply responsible for the current ongoing situation since scientific data also demonstrates that these states have actually accounted for the majority of the production of the world’s plastic pollution, even exporting it to poorer countries in the global south.
Developed nations, with a focus on the US and Europe and the EU need thus to enter in a open and realistic dialogue with developing countries in the pacific and other regions to reach agreements where they can effectively help such states to build institutional and structural mechanisms to end the spread of plastic pollution.
Currently the main global challenge is to create a greater cooperation between developed industrial nations and developing ones since while the UN efforts are important, in specific regions with greater plastic pollution such as the Pacific there is an important need for the establishment of regional cooperation efforts between the local states to better deal with the issue.
The Australian government has already started such efforts and is currently playing a central role to reach such an objective in the pacific by supporting regional cooperation efforts to reach regional deals that deal with marine plastics pollution, with the amount of pollution in the pacific projected to double if nothing gets done in the coming decade and with reports of massive amounts of waste being accumulated in the bottom of the sea.
At the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, which took place in June 2022, Australia´s Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek said she´d like to see a plastic-free Pacific in her lifetime, making the public compromise that Australia will invest 16 million in international efforts to help update Pacific laws to ban single-use plastics and to produce campaigns of public awareness to encourage for the use of less single-use plastic products, making also the promise to give greater support regionally to waste management.
Although this is a significant change, it is still not one that represents a big enough effort to effectively end or reduce dramatically the amount of pollution in the pacific.
For such an ambitious objective to be achieved there is the need for global superpowers with interests in the region such as the US to step up and establish trade deals that would effectively benefit those companies that use less plastic in their products in regional states such as Indonesia and Malaysia, with such measures if put into practice greatly contributing to the reduction of the pollution in the region.
It should be added that such efforts would also need to be connected with the UN Environment Assembly and its resolution to end plastic pollution in the seas globally, with a special focus on establishing a regional intergovernmental committee to negotiate agreements covering the complete life cycle of plastics.
Such an initiative would perfectly align with the efforts that already taking place in the UN and also be aligned with last September´s 2022 Pacific regional declaration on the prevention of marine litter and plastic pollution and its impacts, where Pacific leaders have expressed grave concern about the environmental, human health a food-security impacts of the ongoing plastic pollution that is taking place in their region.
These efforts would additionally help the already ongoing regional cooperation initiatives of ocean policy developments, such as the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Suva where regional state leaders have made the compromise to adopt the ambitious 2050 strategy for the blue Pacific continent which commits as one of its main themes to protect the ocean and its resources from pollution and the elaboration of strategies to reach such a goal in the next 3 decades.
It should also be understood that the situation has gotten worse in the last years in regards to pollution in the Pacific Ocean with Pacific leaders urging the international community in the UN to help them in the efforts to control the pollution and reduce marine plastic litter, noting that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on the small island states with the increase of plastic medical waste.
The main area where other regions such as Europe could contribute in addition to the US for the clean-up of plastic in the pacific would be in creating investment and financial support funds to better the under-resourced waste management infrastructure that exist in most of the states of the pacific, with many pacific states only having decent waste management infrastructure in the major cities.
Additional challenge where pacific states will inevitably need international support will be with the increasing trend of cyclones that have happened and will continue to happened in the region and create too much pollution for the local states to deal.
Some European countries such as Norway, have already made significant efforts in offering financial help for programs in the Philippines to help the state deal with plastic pollution, however the EU could greatly contribute through the establishment of support agreements that would limit the amount of single use plastics present in goods exported or imported between the regions with local regional organizations such as ASEAN.
There has already been on the regional level some success in influencing legislation through international initiatives which managed to make most pacific stares to put policies banning most single use plastic products or polystyrene and more island states committing to do so- in this area the EU could also additionally help to accelerate this process by providing open platforms where international law agreements could be made faster.
The challenge of sea pollution must be dealt with a specific focus and only through international cooperation can the region achieve realistic and strategically sound goals to reduce plastic pollution.
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
