Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
BEN Kritz, my fellow Manila Times columnist, in his November 9 column titled "Plastic 'solutions': Worse than doing nothing at all?" laid out some of the reasons why we shouldn't set our expectations for a meaningful Global Plastics Treaty too high. Kritz used the Philippines' Republic Act 11898 of 2022, or the "Extended Producer Responsibility Act," as an example of environmental legislation that, tragically, fails to address the problem that it was passed to solve. He summarized the law's defects in four points: the government isn't really committed, the law doesn't address plastic production at all, there are too many exceptions, and so-called solutions create their own new, maybe worse, sets of problems.
Like my colleague, I am also pessimistic that the third session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-3) will produce tangible results. The session officially kicks off today at the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. The second session, held in Paris on May 29 to June 2, didn't bring about much progress — though on September 4, a "zero draft text of the international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment," was released by INC Chairman Gustavo Adolfo Meza-Cuadra Velasquez, Peru's ambassador to the United States. Lots of blanks still have to be filled, especially on the more contentious — and most crucial aspects of a future global plastics treaty.
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