As Parties convene in person for the first time in more than two years, ensuring the continued successful implementation of the Montreal Protocol must include a modernisation of its institutions and increased investment in its future.
The toxic pollution resulting from rampant overproduction of virgin plastics and their lifecycles is irreversible, directly undermines our health, drives biodiversity loss, exacerbates climate change, and risks generating large-scale harmful environmental changes.
The Montreal Protocol was created in 1987 to regulate the chemicals responsible for ozone depletion. Widely hailed as the world’s most successful international environmental treaty, it has phased out 99 per cent of all Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS), setting the ozone layer on the path to recovery.
The expected expansion of plastic production will emit greenhouse gases (GHG) equivalent to an estimated 56 Gt CO2e between 2015-50, representing 10-13 per cent of the entire remaining carbon budget. Addressing plastic production is therefore a climate priority and the adoption of a new global plastics treaty which promotes a circular economy for plastics and controls plastic production is a key climate strategy.
To stay well below 2°C and limit global warming to 1.5°C, the global community must take decisive action to reduce methane emissions from the energy sector and transition to alternative energy sources.
The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol is a legally binding multilateral measure which mandates concrete, sector-wide greenhouse gas emission reductions for both developed and developing countries. It represents the largest near-term climate mitigation measure from a single agreement