{"id":60027,"date":"2023-06-01T09:32:57","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T21:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/?p=60027"},"modified":"2024-07-11T12:20:48","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T00:20:48","slug":"a-global-plastic-treaty-can-end-the-age-of-plastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/story\/a-global-plastic-treaty-can-end-the-age-of-plastic\/","title":{"rendered":"A Global Plastic Treaty can end the age of plastic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Climate-crisis-fueled storms<\/a> have hit New Zealand hard this year. In January, we suffered unprecedented extreme weather and flooding, followed by Cyclone Gabrielle in February – the worst storm in 55 years\u2014which triggered a national state of emergency<\/a>. In total, we had 5.5 times more rain<\/a> than Auckland summers typically receive.<\/p>\n\n

In the aftermath, we saw firsthand one of the causes of the climate crisis: single-use plastic. Te Wai \u014crea, a popular Auckland park, was covered with single-use plastic pollution. <\/p>\n\n

Each stage in the lifecycle of plastic, from production to disposal, fuels the climate crisis – 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels, and corporations keep making more. According to the Minderoo Foundation, annual greenhouse gas emissions from single-use plastics in 2021 exceeded the total annual emissions<\/a> of the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n

I am tangata whenua (indigenous to Aotearoa New Zealand) and tangata Moana (indigenous to the Pacific). What I call home is more ocean than it is land, and this ocean is our livelihood. It provides our traditional diet and is a rich source of the stories of our existence. Each Pacific island nation ties to the next through our ancestors\u2019 great migration across the ocean by their navigational skills. <\/p>\n\n

On the east coast of New Zealand\u2019s North Island, heavy rainfall floods the waterways and plastic waste hits the beaches and the waters where locals spend a good chunk of their lives, where they fish and gather food. And every time, they clean up that trash. No one wants to see pollution in places that they have held sacred for many generations.<\/p>\n\n

Communities on the frontlines of any part of the plastic lifecycle, from oil extraction to trash dumps and everywhere in between, are hit with a trifecta of injustice: plastic pollution, social injustice, and the climate crisis. The plastic deluge that is left after every climate-crisis-fueled storm only reinforces this point.<\/p>\n\n

Right now, nothing is being done \u2018upstream\u2019 to stem the flow of plastic so \u2018downstream\u2019 action \u2013 as effective as an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff \u2013 is all that local communities can do. <\/p>\n\n

In Paris this month, governments from all over the world will meet to continue negotiating a Global Plastics Treaty\u2014a once-in-a generation opportunity. An effective treaty must reduce plastic production and prioritize protecting biodiversity, safeguarding the climate and ensuring a just transition to a low-carbon, reuse-based economy.<\/p>\n\n

Instead, big consumer goods companies, in league with the fossil fuel industry, make more and more plastic, reaping the profits while disregarding the cost and damages to the climate, environment and people. <\/p>\n\n

This is where we draw a line in the sand – a treaty that does not stop runaway plastic production and use is bound to fail.<\/p>\n\n

Consider the Cook Islands, where my mother\u2019s parents were raised and married. The way of life has been transformed from a traditional one of circularity and living gently with the land, to one where consumer products – much of it in plastic packaging – have been pushed upon our people since colonisation. <\/p>\n\n

The islands, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, are now filling up with so much plastic that some might reluctantly feel there are just two options, burn it or bury it. Burning would accelerate the climate crisis and rising sea levels, and there is no land on the islands for bottomless landfills. <\/p>\n\n

Coca-Cola, the world\u2019s worst plastic polluter for five years now according to the Break Free from Plastic brand audits, sells their products in plastic bottles in small island nations without any recycling infrastructure or product stewardship. Coke sells over 100 billion bottles each year<\/a> and is one of the wealthiest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands in the world, yet its single-use plastic packaging wreaks havoc on the environment.<\/p>\n\n

In the Global South, single-use sachets that contain only enough product for one serving from consumer goods conglomerates like Unilever and Nestle, flood some regions, especially during the regular typhoon season. In 2020, the CEO of Unilever expressed his interest stop selling sachets<\/a>, yet, since then, Unilever has lobbied against sachet bans<\/a> in India, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n

The treaty negotiations so far have seen New Zealand push for an ambitious position<\/a> that will keep oil and gas in the ground, stop the relentless production and use of plastic, and ensure a just transition to a low-carbon, zero-waste economy with leadership and expertise from indigenous and most affected communities. In the next round of talks, we need to lift the ambitions of other member states.<\/p>\n\n

My ancestors shared a deep connection with Papat\u016b\u0101nuku (our Earth mother) and our well-being is interdependent. We don\u2019t see ourselves as being separate from nature. This indigenous worldview can lead treaty negotiations, creating systems that are less demanding of our planet and value nature over profit.<\/p>\n\n

A Global Plastics Treaty can stop plastic production at the source and deliver a cleaner, safer planet for us and future generations. Governments need to step up to this moment and not let it go to waste.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n \t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tPETITION: Demand a Global Plastics Treaty\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Call on the NZ Government to stand firm and support a strong global plastics treaty.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t \n Take Action\n <\/a>\n \t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/section>\n\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Climate-crisis-fueled storms have hit New Zealand hard this year. In January, we suffered unprecedented extreme weather and flooding. We saw firsthand one of the causes of the climate crisis: single-use plastic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":16787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"p4-page-type":[6],"class_list":["post-60027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenpeace","p4-page-type-story"],"yoast_head":"\nA Global Plastic Treaty can end the age of plastic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/story\/a-global-plastic-treaty-can-end-the-age-of-plastic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Global Plastic Treaty can end the age of plastic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Climate-crisis-fueled storms have hit New Zealand hard this year. 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The whakapapa of my wh\u0101nau is a journey through Te Moana Nui a Kiwa. From the Whangape Harbour to Rawhiti via Ngawha, down to Tauranga Moana, over to Tupapa and Ngatangiia in Rarotonga, and north again to Tahiti. My tamariki, through their p\u0101p\u0101, also whakapapa to Toi village in Niue. I was raised by a frugal mother who was always mindful of her impact on the planet, and navigated it accordingly. My dad has always enjoyed nature and instilled in us that there were responsibilities we had to be able to keep enjoying it. This was my very first influence. When I became an adult and then a mother myself, decolonising my life became a priority to raise my tamariki with an unapologetic, Indigenous worldview. Along the way and without realising, my whakaaro around kaitiakitanga began to shift, or rather, return. I felt more responsible, but also more empowered. I connect the dots between 160+ years of colonisation, extractivism, social and environmental harms and injustices and a worldview that sees the environment as separate to people. That people are somehow entitled to take, own, throw away, destroy and degrade. We are witnessing the impacts from living in a system rooted in colonialism and racism and extractive industries are devastating the planet and furthering the climate crisis. Now, wannabe miners are eyeing up the seabed in the South Taranaki Bight, and also seeking to plunder the deep seas. This problem is colossal, but so is our fight to protect te taiao. There are solutions to these issues. We must stop seabed mining before it starts.","url":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/author\/juressa\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60027"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60054,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60027\/revisions\/60054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60027"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/aotearoa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=60027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}