24 Mar 2022 | Story | UNEP

Progress on plastics in Nairobi lights a path toward Stockholm+50

By Steven Stone

The backdrop was ominous: two days before the arrival of ministers from around the world at the UN Environment Assembly, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine – tanks rolling, bombs dropping, and missiles flying much to the horror of most of the world. We were watching an avoidable tragedy unfolding before our eyes.

The timing couldn’t have been worse – countries had just begun negotiating to establish a pathway to a global treaty on plastics, with several options on the table, divergent views, and a plethora of interested parties from industry lobbying to make their views known and reflected – some to encourage, some to block.

Would countries opt for a limited focus on only the “end of the pipe” – the accumulating mountains of plastic waste that contaminate our land, water and oceans? Or would they opt for a more comprehensive view that included the full life cycle of plastics, from producing the polymers and feedstocks, to the products and packaging that forms part of our daily life – the vast majority of which ends up as waste?

Or, would the whole negotiation, indeed the entire Assembly, implode under the weight of the widening conflict unfolding in eastern Europe?

There were statements, there were walkouts, and there was tension in the air. There were questions, there were sowers of doubt, and there were cautious nods. The prospect of failure was lurking within the discord. But, in the end, all countries agreed that the world would be a better place with limits on plastics production and use; and more visibly, on plastic waste.

This achievement, picked up ​​in the media and heralded across the world, was not only significant in and of itself – that countries were able to rally around the environment as something critically important for all life.

It was also significant for the fact that, far away from the beaten path, under the beautiful skies of Africa, a diverse and divergent group of countries showed that they could rise above discord and make multilateralism work.  

To demonstrate the potential of collective will and ambition on an issue like plastics that is affecting us all and all life on Earth. To renew, indeed, the very promise of multilateralism in the face of one of our darkest hours since World War II.

There will be more to it, of course – the work on a plastics treaty is just starting here, with the agreement to form a negotiating committee that will define the shape and contours of a treaty to govern the production and use of plastics.

But it is a mighty good start – what Inger Andersen has called the most significant and historic agreement since the Paris Accords.

And a significant way to mark the 50th anniversary of the UN Environment Programme, created at the 1972 Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden.  

Showing that UNEP, and multilateralism more broadly, is still alive, relevant, and needed more than ever as we start to push and exceed the boundaries of our fragile planet.

And it is also a good start to renewing, rethinking and reimagining the purpose of collective action between countries for those things which are truly global public goods: a stable climate, clean air and oceans, stability and peace between countries and between humans and nature.

As we approach the milestone of Stockholm+50 this June, we can take solace and even inspiration from the achievements of UNEA 5.2, which demonstrated a robust and stubborn commitment to finding common solutions to wicked, shared problems and challenges like plastics pollution.

We can rethink our fundamental relationship to nature, the source of all life and sustenance. We can reinvent how we govern our markets and behaviour to stabilize and restore nature and climate. We can reimagine the social contract and the institutions needed to achieve planetary resilience and stability. 

Just imagine fifty years ago, another generation stood in our shoes, and asked themselves, “what is missing and what is needed to shape and govern the human environment over the next fifty years?”

Today, as we approach the international meeting in Stockholm on 2-3 June celebrating that original reflection and set of principles and commitments which, among other things, created the UN Environment Programme, we can reflect on what is needed for the next fifty years ahead.

Like a global treaty on plastics. Or an international, intergovernmental panel on science and policy to manage global pollution. Or any number of other tools or rules or new institutions needed to help us land smoothly on our feet in the Anthropocene.

As long as there is light, there is hope. Even in what may seem the darkest hour, hope emerges through actions of charity, justice, reciprocity.  

As they did in Nairobi – rays of light for a world clouded by darkness. And lights on the path for Stockholm+50.