Bagaimana perjanjian global dapat menyelesaikan krisis sampah plastik | Greenbiz

Bagaimana perjanjian global dapat menyelesaikan krisis sampah plastik | Greenbiz

Stempel Waktu: 22 Mei 2023 5
Node Sumber: 2669708

Minggu depan di Paris, pertemuan negara-negara, kelompok bisnis, dan aktivis yang disponsori PBB akan berkumpul untuk memajukan perjanjian yang bertujuan mengurangi polusi plastik di seluruh dunia.

If done thoughtfully and comprehensively, the treaty could be a game-changer. But that’s a two-liter-sized “if.” The open question is whether the measures being considered are sufficient to stem the still-growing tide — or is it a tsunami now? — of sampah plastik, termasuk kemasan kosong dan sampah lainnya yang sudah memenuhi lanskap dan perairan dunia.

Pencarian untuk a Perjanjian Global tentang Polusi Plastik, sebuah perjanjian yang mengikat secara hukum, mulai dijalankan akhir tahun lalu di Sesi Pertama Komite Negosiasi Antarpemerintah tentang Polusi Plastik, yang dalam bahasa PBB dikenal sebagai INC-1. Pertemuan lanjutannya, INC-2, dimulai tanggal 29 Mei. Perjanjian ini akan berupaya untuk memusatkan perhatian pada isu-isu pelik yang harus diatasi oleh perjanjian tersebut. Tujuannya adalah agar rancangan akhir siap untuk diratifikasi pada tahun 2024.

Di antara isu-isu pelik tersebut, menurut a dokumen PBB issued in April: potentially banning or phasing out certain polymers and plastics; reducing the dispersion of microplastics into the air, water and soil; encouraging circular designs of products and packaging; cleaning up plastics already in the environment; and facilitating a just transition, “including an inclusive transition of the sektor sampah informal” in developing economies. (Hyperlink added.)

It seems we’ve come a long way from the days, not very long ago, of resah karena sedotan plastik.

Perjanjian ini merupakan bagian dari meningkatnya kekhawatiran investor, regulator, aktivis dan merek mengenai dampak plastik terhadap lingkungan dan kesehatan manusia. Tahun lalu, misalnya, pada rapat umum tahunan Amazon, mayoritas – 48 persen – pemegang saham memberikan suara mendukung resolusi tersebut. disampaikan oleh kelompok aktivis As You Sow, yang meminta raksasa e-commerce tersebut untuk mengungkapkan peningkatan penggunaan kemasan plastik.

We’ve come a long way from the days, not very long ago, of fretting over plastic straws.

Bulan ini, sebagai rekan saya Jesse Klein melaporkan, the advocacy group CDP announced it will start collecting data about companies’ use of plastics in order to provide greater visibility over how they are contributing to the plastic waste crisis. Companies are being asked to disclose their “most problematic” production and use of plastic polymers, durable plastics and plastic packaging.

All this is taking place at a time when the production and consumption of plastics continues its unyielding growth. Global plastics production doubled during the first two decades of the 21st century, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. According to its “Outlook Plastik Global: Skenario Kebijakan hingga 2060,” plastic waste is on track to nearly triple by 2060 worldwide, with around half going into landfill and less than a fifth recycled.

Wrote the report’s authors: “Without radical action to curb demand, increase product lifespans and improve waste management and recyclability, plastic pollution will rise in tandem with an almost threefold increase in plastics use driven by rising populations and incomes.” The report estimated that almost two-thirds of plastic waste in 2060 will be from short-lived items such as packaging, low-cost goods and textiles.

The runup to INC-2 has seen the publication of other reports on the plastics problems. Last week, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) published “Mematikan Keran: Bagaimana dunia dapat mengakhiri polusi plastik dan menciptakan ekonomi sirkular,” examining the economic and business models needed to address plastics’ impacts, from reuse to sustainable plastic alternatives. Also last week, the advocacy group WWF published “Menguraikan produk plastik berisiko tinggi: Menilai risiko polusi dan kelayakan penghapusan produk plastik,” which aimed “to identify and prioritize plastic product groups with the highest pollution risk, and the control measures that would be most suitable to address them.”

Penawaran atau permintaan?

Jadi, bagaimana perjanjian global bisa mengubah keadaan? Baru-baru ini saya bertanya kepada beberapa pengamat yang memantau isu ini untuk mempertimbangkan prospek perjanjian tersebut, dan apa yang perlu dilakukan untuk membengkokkan kurva pertumbuhan konsumsi plastik dan limbah.

“The argument behind why we need a treaty is that you have this globally traded commodity and everyone’s playing by a different set of rules,” John Duncan, who leads WWF’s global initiative, Tidak Ada Plastik di Alam, explained to me. “So, I think the logic for a global treaty, to bring about standardization and create global rules and a level playing field, is very important.”

Ada dua pendekatan dasar, jelas Duncan: penawaran dan permintaan. Inisiatif sisi pasokan mencakup pembatasan produksi, peningkatan pasokan plastik daur ulang, dan peningkatan keberlanjutan plastik serta bahan dan produk alternatif.

“That’s quite challenging,” Duncan said. Among other things, it requires improving recycling systems, which have been notoriously bad at collecting and processing most types of plastic. “You could be shooting yourself in the foot by trying to tackle it from a supply-side approach.”

Broad-based bans are similarly problematic, Duncan said. “It’s easy to default to, ‘Plastic is the devil and we need to get rid of it.’ I think that’s a very naive approach. Plastic has a number of very important applications but we have broadly lost sight of what those applications are.”

Menyeimbangkan persamaan pasokan-permintaan akan menjadi salah satu masalah buruk yang dihadapi para perunding perjanjian.

Di sisi permintaan, solusinya mencakup membantu meningkatkan permintaan akan plastik daur ulang dan menyamakan persaingan – harga dan kinerja – antara plastik murni dan plastik daur ulang. Hal ini dapat melibatkan beberapa kombinasi pajak atas bahan baku, standar konten daur ulang, persyaratan pengadaan yang ditargetkan, dan pendidikan konsumen.

Menyeimbangkan persamaan pasokan-permintaan akan menjadi salah satu masalah buruk yang dihadapi para perunding perjanjian.

Montreal atau Paris?

Pertanyaan kunci lainnya adalah: Apakah pendekatan perjanjian ini harus terfokus secara sempit, seperti yang terjadi pada tahun 1987 Protokol Montreal tentang Zat yang Menguras Lapisan Ozon, yang sebagian besar telah menghentikan produksi dan penggunaan bahan kimia perusak ozon, atau lebih luas lagi, seperti pada tahun 2015. Perjanjian Paris tentang perubahan iklim?

Ada plus dan minusnya masing-masing.

Protokol Montreal berfokus pada satu kategori bahan kimia, yang penggunaannya hampir seluruhnya bersifat bisnis-ke-bisnis. Tujuan dari program ini jelas: menghilangkan produksi dan penggunaan bahan-bahan perusak ozon.

The process worked. “We have the thickest ozone level layer that we’ve had for 100 years because we just actually did it,” Duncan noted.

Sebaliknya, Perjanjian Paris menetapkan tujuan yang luas mengenai perekonomian global, mulai dari produksi listrik dan pertanian hingga transportasi dan lingkungan binaan, yang melibatkan perilaku bisnis dan konsumen. Hal ini bergantung pada masing-masing negara untuk membuat peta jalannya sendiri dan menetapkan targetnya sendiri – apalagi jumlah target tersebut belum tentu sesuai dengan tujuan yang dinyatakan dalam perjanjian. Namun, hal ini tetap melibatkan setiap negara dalam mengatasi dan, dalam beberapa kasus, menciptakan kembali berbagai aktivitas ekonomi.

“With plastic, every single industry in the world uses it for something,” Doug Woodring, founder and managing director of the Ocean Recovery Alliance (and an occasional kontributor GreenBiz), explained. “There are too many types, there’s no standardization and it’s spread across the world to consumers, so it’s very different than controlling the tap, which is what Montreal was about.”

Di sinilah letak dilemanya: Tujuan Montreal jelas dan terfokus pada sejumlah kecil bahan kimia; Pendekatan Paris bersifat luas, fleksibel dan tunduk pada penerapan (dan interpretasi) oleh masing-masing negara atau entitas subnasional.

Apa pendekatan terbaik untuk plastik? Delegasi INC-2 dan influencer mereka di Paris harus menyelesaikan masalah ini.

Tentu saja, baik para aktivis maupun pelaku bisnis – produsen bahan bakar fosil dan bahan kimia serta merek-merek besar – akan mengerahkan kekuatan penuhnya untuk membentuk diskusi ini. Pada INC-2, di Punta del Este, Uruguay, pada bulan Desember, yang terutama berkaitan dengan masalah prosedural, para aktivis keluh “the presence of leading corporate polluters in the negotiation process and the lack of transparency from [UNEP] on how many of them are hiding behind NGO badges.”

Minggu depan kemungkinan akan terjadi kelanjutan perselisihan antara aktivis dan perusahaan. Ini akan menarik untuk ditonton.

Respon bisnis

Companies have ample reason to both advance and forestall a global treaty. “A lot of the challenges that companies face is that each country has a pipeline of five to 10 or 15 regulations, sometimes going in very different directions,” WWF’s Duncan said. “Some places are pushing for biodegradable or bio-based plastics, some are banning plastics. I think companies are saying, ‘It’s actually cheaper if we could have a system that harmonized all these things.’ It would make a hell of a lot of sense.”

Sebagai bagian dari perannya di WWF, Duncan adalah sekretariat salah satu pimpinan Koalisi Bisnis untuk Perjanjian Plastik Global, yang mewakili lebih dari 80 lembaga keuangan, organisasi nirlaba, dan perusahaan dari seluruh rantai nilai plastik yang telah menyelaraskan diri pada visi bersama. They view the treaty as key to accelerating progress in three areas: reducing plastic production and use through a circular economy approach; increasing the circulation “of all necessary plastics”; and preventing and remediating “hard-to-abate micro- and macro-plastic leakage into the environment.”

Kelompok bisnis lain tidak terlalu antusias dengan solusi yang mengekang produksi plastik. Mereka termasuk American Chemistry Council (ACC), yang anggotanya mewakili perusahaan-perusahaan kimia dan minyak besar. Sebagai Reuters melaporkan last year: “The Washington-based ACC is attempting to forge a coalition of big businesses to help steer treaty discussions away from production restrictions, according to an Oct. 21 e-mail sent from the trade group to a blind-copied list of recipients.”

kelompok lain, Mitra Global untuk Sirkularitas Plastik, a collaboration of the International Council of Chemical Associations (“the global voice of the chemical industry”), is advocating for a circular economy “in which plastic products and packaging are sustainably reused or recycled instead of discarded, enabled by a global agreement that unlocks industry innovation and global investment in plastics circularity.” That is, its primary focus is on end-of-pipe solutions — the disposition of plastic at the end of its useful life, as opposed to reducing plastic use altogether or developing non-polluting alternatives.

Koalisi industri, harus dikatakan, sudah sering terjadi gagal total dalam memberikan solusi substantif dan efektif terhadap krisis plastik. Hal ini terutama berlaku bagi koalisi yang dipimpin oleh industri yang menciptakan masalah yang perlu dipecahkan.

Seperti yang ditulis Jeva Lange baru-baru ini di buletinnya Peta Panas Setiap Hari, “Plastics are the fossil fuel industry’s last stand.”

“The challenge is that, at the treaty level, what we have to overcome is individual states or companies fighting for their own specific interests, as opposed to looking at the bigger picture,” said Duncan. Moreover, he said, “We typically look at the costs associated with change and struggle to understand the opportunities associated with that change.”

It’s naive to look at it just as a waste problem because it’s not. It’s a systems problem.

Yang semakin memperumit respons perusahaan adalah kenyataan bahwa tidak jelas berapa banyak komitmen yang telah dibuat oleh merek-merek terkemuka untuk mengurangi atau menghilangkan sampah plastik yang sudah berjalan sesuai rencana.  

“Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a lot of progress,” Simon Fischweicher, head of corporations and supply chains at CDP North America, told me. “We’ve seen an increase in policy around single-use plastics. We’ve seen an increase in company commitment around single-use plastic. Yet we have not seen any decrease in plastic waste. In fact, we’ve only seen an increase in the amount of plastic production and waste. And we know that, at least in the United States, 85 percent of plastic ends up in the landfill. So, there really hasn’t been much progress in terms of recycling, reusing or reducing anything around single-use plastic.”

Kurangnya data, dan kaitan plastik dengan krisis iklim, adalah alasan CDP meluncurkan inisiatif pengungkapan plastik baru-baru ini, kata Fischweicher.

“We made the decision that in order to address the climate crisis, we needed to address the nature crisis, and that includes ocean health,” he explained. “Plastic pollution and microplastic particles are significantly damaging the health and biodiversity of our oceans, which serve as major carbon sinks and are critical for human society and nature overall.” The treaty, he said, could significantly advance that goal.

Mereka yang berkumpul di Paris minggu depan akan menentukan apakah dan bagaimana plastik dapat mencapai kesetaraan dengan iklim dan keanekaragaman hayati sebagai isu penting yang layak untuk dijadikan perjanjian global. Kritikus seperti Doug Woodring sudah menunjukkan kelemahan pendekatan perjanjian tersebut.

For starters, Woodring told me, the treaty “doesn’t deal with existing inventory,” meaning “all of the stuff that is already out there, which could get recovered and repurposed in some manner, even if it’s for energy but also for concrete or asphalt or new materials that are plywood replacements.”

Moreover, he said, the proposed treaty is more about tweaking the existing system than reimagining it. “There’s no rethink on how to collect plastic in a better way and get it to the brands that have made huge commitments to use it. That’s the giant missing piece that is not being addressed.”

John Duncan agrees. “It’s naive to look at it just as a waste problem because it’s not. It’s a systems problem. You want the right materials to be used in the right places. And when they are being used in the right places, you need the right systems to manage them effectively.”

Namun para pengkritiknya pun melihat ada harapan dalam negosiasi perjanjian minggu depan.

“This is just stage two of a many-stage process,” Woodring said. “It’s not going to be the end of the treaty discussion. It’s just part of the process to get to the next meeting.” Indeed, the U.N. already has mapped out future meetings: INC-3 in November, in Kenya; INC-4 next spring, in Canada; and INC-5 in fall 2024, in South Korea.

Concluded Woodring: “I think there will be a lot of good things that come out of this regardless of what the final answer is.”

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