Feds hosting international plastic pollution conference

Photo Credit: Adobe Stock/Bits and Splits

Canada’s federal government is hosting international partners at a session in Ottawa this week, with the goal of developing a global agreement to reduce plastic pollution.

The fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4) is being held at Ottawa’s Shaw Centre and will run from April 23 to April 29. The session’s goal is to advance the development a global agreement on plastic pollution by the end of 2024.

During the conference, the Canadian delegation, led by Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, will convene with international partners from around the world to address the plastic pollution problem.

INC-4 is the fourth negotiating session of five sessions being coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme.

At the negotiation sessions in Ottawa, countries will continue to work through the possible scope, wording, and mechanisms, including financial tools, to include in the new legally binding treaty on plastic pollution. No final agreement is anticipated at INC-4, and the negotiations will continue at INC-5 in the Republic of Korea later this year.

The INC-4 meeting hasn’t escaped the notice of some plastics industry groups, one of which cautioned the attendees against recommending heavy-handed bans against plastics. “This meeting has the opportunity to be make or break for these negotiations,” said Matt Seaholm president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Plastics Industry Association. “It will be a missed opportunity if we spend the week talking about how to stop the production of plastic. We need partners and remain hopeful attendees will come to the table in a spirit of compromise so that we can develop strategies to truly address plastic waste in the environment.”

To date, INC negotiations have resulted in a 69-page draft. Negotiators will now work to refine that text down to a list of core issues. Succeeding at that will be key to scoring a global treaty at the final session in Korea, Canadian officials said.

Canada is part of group of 60 countries that have taken that have established the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution, which aims to end plastic pollution by 2040.