Understanding the links between plastic pollution and climate change

Plastic pollution has emerged as a key challenge that adversely affects natural ecosystems, human health, and the climate

The world today is faced by complex and interconnected global crises, that include, among others, climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. In recent years, plastic pollution has emerged as a key challenge that adversely affects natural ecosystems, human health, and the climate. However, while there are global treaties addressing the climate and biodiversity crises, there is currently no dedicated international legally binding instrument to face plastic pollution and scale up global cooperation and ambition.

This is about to change with the creation of a Global Plastic Treaty, set to be finalised and adopted by early 2025. The process towards developing this treaty and its national-level implementation modalities provides a crucial opportunity to ensure complementarity and coherence, as well as operationalise potential synergies between climate action and combatting plastic pollution.

The crisis of plastic pollution

Plastic has rapidly become one of the biggest sources of pollution and affects all countries across the world. According to recent studies, plastics, including micro- and nano-plastics, are present in marine and terrestrial ecosystems around the world and currently account for 85% of all marine litter. It is estimated that billions of tons of plastic have been produced since the 1950s, and plastic production as well as waste are expected to further increase, tripling by 2060 in a business-as-usual scenario (OECD).

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that the process of plastic production and disposal emitted around 3.7% of global emissions in 2019 (1.8 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent), and that these emissions could more than double by 2060. Emissions from extraction of raw materials, including fossil fuels and bio-based feedstock, and production of polymers (including refining, steam cracking, and gasification)currently account for around 90% of this, with the remaining 10% consisting of end-of-life emissions, which can vary depending on the disposal methods and can include methane emissions connected to plastic degradation in landfills or the environment. Overall, these emissions can be mitigated through reduced production and use of plastics as well as other approaches such as recycling, which can also provide co-benefits to the environment, human health, and livelihoods. Reducing plastic pollution will contribute to climate change mitigation and therefore, the overall temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, but it can also offer potential adaptation benefits and reduce vulnerability for some forms of climate-induced loss and damage. For example, plastic waste often clogs drainage systems and waterways, which increases flood risks and vulnerabilities for cities and communities that are already exposed to heavy rainfall and extreme weather events. Similarly, removing plastic waste from the environment could restore impacted ecosystem services and thereby strengthen the adaptive capacities of both human and natural systems.

Complementarity and synergies between global treaties

The process towards developing a global plastics treaty is based on resolution 5/14, adopted at the Fifth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) in February/March 2022. The resolution recognises plastic pollution as a key global environmental challenge and commits to establishing an international legally binding instrument, which is now being developed through the work of an International Negotiating Committee (INC). This Committee has met twice so far (INC-1 in November/December 2022, INC-2 in May/June 2023) and is scheduled to meet again from 13 to 19 November, 2023, in Nairobi (INC-3). This third meeting will be followed by the Sixth Session of UNEA in early 2024 as well as two more meetings of the Committee (INC-4 in April/May and INC-5 in October/November), following which the new legal instrument is planned to be adopted and signed.

The UNEA-5 resolution highlights the importance of “cooperation, coordination and complementarity among relevant regional and international conventions and instruments,” including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Similarly, the zero draft of the proposed treaty, which will be discussed at INC-3, suggests that the governing body of the treaty would invite inputs from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as other relevant scientific and technical bodies. From the climate change side, there is no explicit focus on plastic pollution in the UNFCCC or the Paris Agreement. However, the preamble of the Paris Agreement directly references “sustainable lifestyles and sustainable patterns of consumption and production,” which was also included again in the cover decision of the last Conference of the Parties (COP27) at the end of 2022. 

With the Paris Agreement now being implemented and the Global Plastic Treaty still under development, there is an opportunity to strengthen these interconnections and highlight the potential co-benefits and synergies between climate action and the reduction of plastic pollution. Key areas of interconnection could include national implementation or action plans that harmonise the policy approaches and implementation frameworks for climate action and plastic reduction; transfer of key technologies; data-sharing protocols; and means of implementation, which could also include capacity-building and technical support.

Incorporating climate change into processes related to the Global Plastic Treaty could scale up climate ambition and help actions under the new instrument to effectively contribute towards climate change mitigation and adaptation. Similarly, addressing plastic pollution as part of climate policies and plans can unlock vital co-benefits and ensure coherence of actions towards the common goal of addressing interconnected global crises.

 (The writer works as Director: Research & Knowledge Management at SLYCAN Trust, a non-profit think tank based in Sri Lanka. His work focuses on climate change, adaptation, resilience, ecosystem conservation, just transition, human mobility, and a range of related issues. He holds a Master’s degree in Education from the University of Cologne, Germany and is a regular contributor to several international and local media outlets)