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Negotiators from 175 nations began talks Tuesday to agree a global treaty to reduce plastic pollution, which is found everywhere from mountain tops to ocean depths, and within human blood and breast milk.
Negotiators must streamline the existing treaty draft and decide its scope: whether it will focus on human health and the environment, limit the actual production of plastic, restrict some chemicals used in plastics, or any combination of the above.
Countries are under pressure to make progress on a first-ever global plastics treaty this week, but they face tense negotiations in the Canadian capital with parties deeply divided over what the treaty should include as talks begin on Tuesday.
A global treaty to end plastic waste will not be ambitious enough if it does not include some limits on plastic production, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said Tuesday as the fourth round of negotiations kicked off in Ottawa.
Negotiators hope to craft a treaty to stop the rapidly escalating plastic pollution problem.