Since negotiations on the United Nations Treaty to Treat Plastic Plastic Pollution began more than three years ago, human health protection has increased to the top of the priority lists of many countries. This is partly because science in the case has evolved very quickly. There are now thousands of scientific papers that explain how plastic materials affect people’s health at each stage of the material life cycle – from extracting oil and gas to getting rid of plastic garbage – and more research appears all the time.
Juan Carlos Monterrey, the main negotiator of Panama in the sixth round of treaties negotiations, which started last week and goes until August 14 in Geneva, highlighted during the Tuesday event. “We are here to build a treaty that prevents our children from playing with games full of camels and driving,” he said to young activists. The new generations should not be “poisoning them with plastic even before they take their first breath.”
But perpetuating human health protection in the treaty is far from a guarantee. Some countries want to remove any mention of them from the agreement, on the pretext that it is better to leave the issue to other international agreements. Now, during the last hours of what is intended to be the last round of the treaty negotiations, the delegates of those countries grow only more rude. the The latest draft The agreement removed a major reference to human health, a step that the quick -condemned environmental groups were “unacceptable”.
Joseph Winters / Great
“I am worried,” said Christos Simonides, a pediatrician at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, Symeonides is also a member of Scientists coalition for an effective plastic treatyA group of independent experts trying to direct negotiations. He added: “I do not see another opportunity on the horizon to deal with this issue.”
The relationship between plastic and human health should, in theory, should be indisputable between those who negotiate the plastic treaty. The two countries admitted in Delegate that they agreed unanimously on Once again in 2022, when they decided what the Plastic Treaty Point would be. Science was already clear at that stage that plastic materials pose a widespread threat to human health; Medical and research groups such as the endocrine community He was really saying that for years
But more evidence appeared in an overlapping time. One of the members of the Alliance of Scientists, Megan Dini – a researcher at the London College of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine – charged some prominent points during a press conference on Tuesday: those who live near petrochemical facilities in Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States and Taiwan face a. 30 percent of the risk of developing leukemia; Confronting people working in South Korea refineries Three times the risk of oral cancer; One chemical related to plastic materials causes 350,000 early deaths from cardiovascular disease every year, as well as 3.7 trillion dollars in associated health care costs.
The demonstrators with the network of disposal of international pollutants highlight the relationship between plastic and the harmful health effects of pregnant people.
Joseph Winters / Great
A mark designed by the World Wildlife Fund is turning from the microblasts that enter the bodies of people.
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“People have become more aware [health]Pethani Carney Al -Miroth, an environmental toxic specialist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and a leader of the scientists ’alliance, said people talk more about it.
Both the first three negotiating sessions Show wide Support Among the countries that include a commitment is legally obligated to protect human health from plastic pollution, according to reports prepared by the Secretariat of negotiations, which organize meetings. The early drafts of the human agreement were mentioned over and over again healthIt reflects the importance of the topic among diplomats.
In the fourth round of negotiations, however – last year in Ottawa, Canada – this clear support began to fade. Although many delegates and honesty continued to talk about the health role.In the heart“From the treaty, others began to complain that health issues related to plastic materials must be treated instead by international bodies such as the World Health Organization. The delegates who were not named argued that” there “argued thatThere is no direct connection between plastic pollution and health“Or that the evidence of such a link was“ not well developed. ”Saudi Arabia has made a suggestion that the independent article of the treaty is health It is deleted.
Scientists, including Carne Merrits, say this opposition is one of the economic interests of some countries. She says that the protection of human health from plastic requires prohibiting dangerous chemical additives and reducing plastic production-curse measures for oil-producing countries, especially those that depend on fossil fuels 40 percent Or more From federal budget revenues.
Some of the conversation points that I heard from delegates Echo That is in the petrochemical industryWhich appeared in Increase the numbers In every consecutive round of the plastic treaty conversations.
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It seems that these countries got their desire on Wednesday afternoon. Although the treaty is not completed, the head of negotiations – Luis Fayas Valdivizo, the Ecuadorian diplomat – was issued New draft To use delegates during the remaining hours of the conversations. It removed the independent article on health, as well as other health -protected articles on controlling plastic production and overcoming dangerous chemicals.
“It seems as if the similar group of thinking has formulated it,” one of the observers told GRIS. Non -profit groups and calling groups held a protest outside the conference venue, as they called the new text “unacceptable” and “betrayal of our societies and the indigenous population.” “Our health is at stake; our children are at stake; our future is at stake.”
Joseph Winters / Great
During a plenary session immediately after the launch of the text, Monterrey said that the chair had “das”, “SPat on” and “Burned” the red lines in his country on plastic production and human health. “This is simply disgusting,” added. “It is not an ambition, it is a surrender, and we will not allow our future generations as a weak treaty like this.” The delegates from many other countries also objected, including Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Denmark, Fiji, Kenya and Nigeria.
In contrast, the delegate of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in contrast – is talking on behalf of a group of Arab countries – describing it as a “teacher”, although he still said that he through some unlimited “red lines”.
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The United Nations executive officials have formed the role of health in the treaty. On Saturday, during the launch of a new information panel index on the Internet, the United Nations CEO Ingren Andersen suggested that health could be at risk for the completion of a treaty by the end of Thursday. I told the audience that although they met to discuss human health, countries have originally agreed to a treaty dealing with plastic garbage in the environment.. She described the plastic wreckage in the oceans and insufficient waste management systems all over the world, saying it would be “unacceptable” to allow the situation to continue. “Help me” secure this treaty.
One of the scientists who attended this event said that they were surprised by the power of Andersen’s speech, who seemed to convert the conversation away from the full life cycle of plastic and towards pollution at the end of his life. “It was clear to the participants that she was telling them” to extinguish it “with healthy things. As head of the United Nations Environment Program, Andersen’s goal is the country’s sponsors towards a timely deal – but it is I face criticism To do this at the expense of ambition.
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Jane Monk, the administrative director and chief scientific official at the food packaging forum, a Swiss non -profit organization, said health is already present in the mandate of the treaty and that it will be “unhelpful” not to include it in the final agreement. She said, “I think there was some irritation about how strong the narration of the narration, but not for the sake of engraving or anyone in the trust.”
What happens after that is unclear. In front of the delegates, one day of the tornado talks to settle their differences and agree to the draft of the text that they all find acceptable-so far, no one was ready to call for a decision to take a majority of vote, which means that they are still detained to search for consensus. If they leave Geneva without a deal, the United Nations Environment Program may have to determine another round of negotiations, or he may try to add a treaty to the agenda of the upcoming environment association meeting at the end of the year.
For the sake of human health, as well as environment and environmental justice, the calling groups showed their preference:There is no better treaty than a bad treaty“