UNEP chief appeals to start work on agreement on plastic pollution

Nairobi, March 2 Making a compassionate appeal for the establishment of an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to kick-start work towards a global and legally binding agreement to address plastic pollution, UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen on Wednesday said it would have been the most important multilateral environmental deal since the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015.

"And such a deal could be transformational," she stressed.

Delivering her speech for the high-level segment of the resumed fifth environment Assembly in this Kenyan city, she said: "While we meet at a time of turmoil, when peace remains more important than ever, I can say without doubt that UNEA 5.2 is the most relevant and important gathering of this body since its formation.

"Why? Because the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste is threatening to pull the very rug out from under the Sustainable Development Goals and with it whip away our aspirations to end hunger and poverty, deliver peace and equity, and live in harmony with the natural world."

"As I told negotiators a few days ago, the world is demanding that we act on plastic pollution. They, the negotiators, have delivered the first step in this process by agreeing to establish an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee

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