STORY: :: Greenpeace activists board tanker to load plastic chemicals amid UN talks on plastics
:: Greenpeace
:: Off the coast of South Korea
:: November 30, 2024
:: Lisa Ramsden, Greenpeace USA
“We are here today to urge world leaders negotiating the final draft of the new Global Plastics Agreement in Busan to seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to secure a strong global plastics agreement that will take plastic production out of control. We need our governments to listen to public opinion, science and progressive businesses and deliver an ambitious agreement to reduce plastic production.”
A video released by Greenpeace shows four activists wearing protective gear boarding a tanker loaded with plastic chemicals from a South Korean company. Activists climbed the mast to hang a banner reading “Strong Plastic Contract”. Greenpeace activists were also seen painting a message that read “plastic kills” on the outside of the tanker.
South Korea is hosting delegates from around 175 countries for the fifth and final meeting of the UN’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) to agree on globally binding rules on plastics, but this week’s talks have moved at a glacial pace.
A document outlining the agreement, released Friday (November 29th) by committee chairman Luis Vayas Valdivieso, presented ideas such as a global list of plastic products to be managed and a financial mechanism to help finance developing countries’ activities related to agreement. It left it up to countries’ voluntary decisions to take a range of possible actions on plastic products and left undecided how rich nations would contribute to the fund.
