Kenya calls for plastics pollution deal as global talks grind on

In the Daily Nation, a story notes that the first week of plastic treaty negotiations is over, and it feels like reading the first chapter of a long, complicated book.

Negotiators, like dedicated students, have been carefully sounding out the words, understanding the characters, grasping the basic plot and ensuring that they note down the themes that they find important.

Ababu Namwamba, Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON), expressed the need to hasten the process since time is running out.

“We are no closer to getting an agreement. We are still very far. Plastic pollution is not waiting,” he said.

“We take note that some progress has been made on some articles. We must, at the bare minimum, agree on the essential elements that will constitute an all-inclusive, ambitious, effective and implementable treaty,” he added.

Bjorn Beeler, Executive Director of International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN) told Sunday Nationthat the first four days generated a lot of frustration.

“It’s a marathon. Each day is like running around the track and we have observed that countries were just putting more ideas back into the treaty,” he said.

Beeler worries that the exclusion of observers in Geneva especially during informal meetings only benefits countries with larger delegations.

“It is better that they give us something that is thin to be built on, than compromising a future with a meaningless agreement,” he said.

Read the full story in the Daily Nation.