Concerns for Australian retail as “historic” UN plastic treaty signed

The UN called it the biggest green deal since the 2015 Paris climate agreement — it’s the first-ever plan to create the world’s first global plastic pollution treaty, a legally binding agreement to take on the “full lifecycle of plastic” from production to packaging design and waste.

“This is a historic moment,” says Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme from Nairobi.

But, he says, “as we embark on this journey, let us be clear that the agreement will only truly count if it has clear provisions that are legally binding”.

The Greens welcomed the UN agreement but warned Australia not to take a two-year pause on tackling the issue — comments that come following the release of the second part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s landmark report into the climate crisis.