The world agrees there's a plastic waste crisis—can it agree on a solution?
Many countries are disappointed the UN didn’t reach a more definitive agreement on plastic pollution in Kenya, yet efforts continue at national and international levels.
Nairobi, KenyaIt didn’t take long after the recent United Nations environmental assembly in Kenya ended for environmentalists to sharply rebuke the United States for allegedly derailing global ambitions to prevent plastic debris from flowing into the oceans.
“The tyranny of the minority,” their statement declared as environmentalists denounced the Americans for what they said was slowing progress on marine plastics by diluting a resolution calling for phasing out single-use plastic by 2025 and blocking an effort to craft a legally binding treaty on plastic debris.
Yet that unsparing critique doesn’t fully reflect the negotiations that played out in a small roof-top conference room on the UN’s campus in Kenya’s capital city of Nairobi. What happened is perhaps best viewed not as