This factsheet is intended to support fully informed global plastics treaty negotiations by clarifying the terminology used to describe plastics as polymers or materials and not plastics as products.
Plastic removal technologies (PRTs) promise to improve environmental quality by removing plastics from the environment but they can also threaten biodiversity. Almost no environmental impact assessments (EIAs) are done on PRTs.
The ever-increasing discharges and accumulation of microplastics in the environment is a serious global concern. Microplastics are found in polar ice caps, at the top of mountains, in soil, freshwater systems and all ocean basins, from the surface to the deep sea.
To deliver an international legally binding instrument (ILBI) to end plastic pollution will require mobilising substantial financial resources from a variety of sources to achieve its objective. This may include leveraging new multilateral finance from developed (donor) countries developing (recipient) countries party to the new agreement, accessing existing multilateral and bilateral finance and ensuring flows of private sector finance.
Sea-based marine plastic pollution is roughly estimated to comprise around 20% of all marine plastic pollution and represents a major threat to marine ecosystem. However, sea-based marine plastic pollution has not been sufficiently addressed to date representing a significant gap in global governance.
Reuse is a key component of the 3Rs + return (reduce, reuse and recycle) approach to reducing pollution but it has not yet been fully embraced in policy despite its reference in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Regional organisations ply a central role in coordinating regional climate change adaptation responses across small island developing states (SIDS), 58 countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change and its impacts. The effectiveness of these organisations in coordinating adaptation efforts is
underexplored in the academic literature, and this paper helps to fill the gap. By developing the
Framework for Assessing Regional Organisations Coordinating Climate Change Adaptation, it
qualitatively assesses the adaptation-related inputs, projects/programs and outputs of the Caribbean
Community Climate Change Centre, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and the Secretariat of the
Pacific Regional Environment Programme
Global climate funds have faced much criticism for failing to deliver fast and flexibility enough to match the urgency of the climate crisis, especially for the world's most climate vulnerable countries. In the Pacific region, access to climate finance is a clear priority of leaders and the need for easier access and greater quantities of funds flowing to the region has consistently been raised at both regional and international fora.
The year 2022 was still a warm year for the region, despite temporary cooling associated with the La Nina event.
The moderate La Nina event contributed to significant rainfall anomalies, namely particularly dry conditions in much of the equatorial Pacific, including Kiribati, Tuvalu, Nauru, Tokelau (some locations received totals more than 80% below long-term average) and wet conditions over the maritime continent and eastern Australia
A Pacific tailored impacts methodology applied to examine residual impacts of how effective coastal protection designs were. Some designs were better served with a blend of nature-based climate solutions across our coasts.
