- The United States will support a treaty to limit plastic pollution.
- Secretary of State Anthony Brinken made a promise in Nairobi.
- He suggested that each country set its own rules.
On Thursday, the United States supported negotiations on a treaty to curb plastic pollution, ending a key obstacle to international efforts to clean up the Earth’s oceans and save marine life.
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Secretary of State Anthony Brinken said during a visit to the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi that the United States will support negotiations on a treaty to solve the plastic problem held in the Kenyan capital in February.
“Our goal is to create a tool that we can use to protect our oceans and all the lives they support from the growing global hazards of plastic pollution,” Brinken said.
He said:
As we all know, our health-our survival-is closely related to the health of the ocean. We must do more to protect them.
According to United Nations data, about 8 million tons of plastic eventually flow into the ocean every year, causing the death or injury of 1 million birds and more than 100,000 marine mammals.
Brinken’s statement is the latest effort made by the United States to strengthen environmental protection under the leadership of President Joe Biden. Biden regards climate change as a key domestic priority.
Possibly considering the political reality of divided Washington, the treaty needs to be approved by the Senate, and Brinken called for a plastic treaty in which countries will put forward their own plans of action.
However, the United States has seen two parties calling for the clean up of the ocean, and former President Donald Trump has signed a bill aimed at curbing ocean plastic pollution.
But environmentalists say that the previous government opposed the treaty and blamed the problem on China, the main source of plastics processing, but the materials usually come from the West, thus hindering international efforts.
In 2019, the United States did not join about 180 governments, which agreed in Geneva to establish a legally binding framework to regulate plastic waste.
The United States did not vote because it is not a party to the Basel Convention, which is a United Nations treaty concluded in 1989 to regulate the movement of hazardous waste.
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