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lawrence berkeley national laboratory
Ahead of Plastics Treaty Summit, Studies Make Case for Stopping Pollution at the Source
"Whether the treaty includes plastic production cuts is not just a policy debate," said one expert. "It's a matter of survival."
Apr 19, 2024
As worldwide government officials, civil society groups, and activists prepare to head to Ottawa, Canada for the fourth session of global plastics treaty negotiations, climate advocates urged attendees to keep in mind the new findings of scientists who showed Thursday that plastic production—not waste—is the main driver of the synthetic substances' planet-heating emissions.
The federally funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California released a paper showing that the greenhouse gas emissions of the plastics industry are equivalent to those of about 600 coal-fired power plants and are four times higher than those of the airline sector.
Lobbyists for the plastics industry, along with countries that are home to the world's biggest fossil fuel polluters, have pushed for a plastics treaty that centers waste management and a "circular economy" in which waste plastic is used indefinitely to produce new synthetic products.
But the Lawrence Berkeley scientists found that 75% of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by plastics are released before the plastic compounds are even created by the polymerization process.
"Plastics' impact on the climate starts with extraction," said the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) in a policy brief on the lab's findings. "To fully capture, measure, evaluate, and address the impacts of plastic pollution, assessment, and regulatory controls must consider the complete lifecycle, beginning with extraction."
According to Lawrence Berkeley's research, if plastic production remains at its current level, it could burn through roughly one-fifth the planet's remaining carbon budget, pushing the Earth closer to planetary heating that exceeds 1.5°C.
"To avoid breaching the 1.5°C limit set by the Paris [climate] agreement," said GAIA, "primary plastic production must decrease by at least 12% to 17% per year, starting in 2024."
To achieve that goal, said the Center for Financial Accountability on Thursday, fossil fuel-producing countries must stop treating the global plastics treaty "as a waste management treaty."
"While global leaders are trying to negotiate a solution to the plastic crisis, the petrochemical industry is investing billions of dollars in making the problem rapidly worse," said GAIA science and policy director Neil Tangri, a senior fellow at University of California, Berkeley. "We need a global agreement to stop this cancerous growth, bring down plastic production, and usher in a world with less plastic and less pollution."
At the third session of the the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-3) last year, 143 plastics industry lobbyists registered to attend, prompting advocates to call for their exclusion from future summits.
On Sunday, ahead of the meetings set to take place from April 23-29, the Break Free From Plastic movement is planning to march through Ottawa, to demand "strong conflict of interest policies that protect the treaty negotiations and its implementation from the vested interests of industries that are profiting" from the growing plastic pollution crisis.
The campaigners will also demand a negotiation process that respects the rights of Indigenous people, a treaty that supports "non-toxic reuse systems" and rejects a "circular economy" model, and limiting and reducing plastic production a "non-negotiable requirement to end plastic pollution."
Dr. Jorge Emmanuel, a co-author of GAIA's policy brief and a research fellow at Siliman University in the Philippines, said the climate impacts that have already hit his country illustrate the need for a strong global plastics treaty.
"The Philippines is on the frontlines of both climate change and plastic pollution," said Emmanuel. "Heatwaves, powerful typhoons, and flooding are getting worse, and the petrochemical industry has displaced our traditional systems with mountains of plastic that poison our communities."
"Whether the treaty includes plastic production cuts is not just a policy debate," he added. "It's a matter of survival."
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Climate-Intensified Mountain Rain Could Affect Billions of People: Study
"This increase in rainfall extremes is not only something that is going to happen from now until the end of the 21st century—we're already seeing it," said the lead author.
Jun 28, 2023
Researchers from a U.S. national laboratory warned Wednesday that rising temperatures are shifting snow to rain in mountainous regions, increasing the risk of dangers such as floods, landslides, and soil erosion for up to a quarter of the world's population.
Scientists have previously determined that a warmer climate will mean more intense extreme precipitation events, but this "is the first time researchers have looked at whether that extreme precipitation comes as rain or snow," according to the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The new study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature, connects every 1°C rise in the global temperature to an average of 15% more rain at high elevations, particularly in certain "hot spots" around the world.
Lead author Mohammed Ombadi said in a statement that "our findings revealed a linear relationship between the level of warming and the increase in extreme rainfall: For instance, 1°C of warming causes 15% more rain, while 3°C leads to a 45% increase in rainfall."
"This increase in rainfall extremes is not only something that is going to happen from now until the end of the 21st century—we're already seeing it," he noted. "That same rate was also evident in the data from 1950 to 2019. Rainfall extremes in mountains have already been increasing, and will continue to change with that 15% rate."
"One-quarter of the global population lives in or downstream from mountainous regions... They are going to be directly affected by this risk."
"One-quarter of the global population lives in or downstream from mountainous regions," he highlighted. "They are going to be directly affected by this risk."
The researchers found the shift from snow to rain is occurring in all Northern Hemisphere mountain ranges, but those at greatest risk of extreme events are the Cascades, Himalayas, Sierra Nevada, and coastal ranges from Southern California to Canada.
While further study is needed to determine why certain areas face greater potential danger, Ombadi said that "we think that North American Pacific mountain ranges are more susceptible to the risk of rainfall extremes than other mountain ranges because a significant portion of snowfall in this region typically occurs at temperatures just below 0°C."
"The slightest change in air temperature will shift this snowfall to rainfall. This is unlike other mountain ranges where snowfall may occur at very low temperatures below 0°C," he explained.
Ombadi expressed hope that the study will assist not only scientists conducting future research but also civil engineers and policymakers trying to mitigate and prepare for the worsening climate emergency.
"We need to factor these results into how we design and build the infrastructure in these mountainous regions, so that they can withstand the negative consequences of increases in rainfall extremes," Ombadi asserted.
"There are many technologies in progress that could help us reduce greenhouse gas emissions and how much the planet warms," he added. "To me, this study shows the need to invest in those clean solutions, and also start preparing for the consequences of warming now."
The study came a day after Ian Fry, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the context of climate change, said the number of people displaced by climate impacts "is rapidly increasing" and the global community "must realize its responsibility" to protect them.
World leaders are set to meet in the United Arab Emirates later this year for COP28, the next U.N. climate summit. Previous conferences have led campaigners and scientists to argue that countries' pledges and plans to reduce planet-heating emissions—particularly from fossil fuels, which made up 82% of global energy consumption last year—are wildly inadequate.
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