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A unified effort is crucial for the successful negotiation of the global plastics treaty

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Friday, April 19, 2024

A new global plastics treaty, currently under negotiation, seeks to address rampant plastic pollution and its environmental and health impacts.Martin Wagner reports for Nature.In short:The treaty aims to reduce dependency on fossil fuels and the release of hazardous substances from plastics.There is broad support for the treaty from the public, researchers, and some businesses, yet significant resistance from fossil fuel-dependent nations and industries.The treaty's success depends on minimizing corporate interference and protecting scientific discussions from undue influence.Key quote: "The widespread support for the treaty is also striking. It comes from not only researchers, but also the public, civil society and businesses — 'all the stars are aligned,' as one of my colleagues says." — Martin Wagner, AuthorWhy this matters: This treaty represents a critical step toward improving public health by mitigating the environmental damage caused by plastics. Read more from our newsroom: “Plastic will overwhelm us:” Scientists say health should be the core of global plastic treaty.

A new global plastics treaty, currently under negotiation, seeks to address rampant plastic pollution and its environmental and health impacts.

Martin Wagner reports for Nature.

In short:

The treaty aims to reduce dependency on fossil fuels and the release of hazardous substances from plastics.
There is broad support for the treaty from the public, researchers, and some businesses, yet significant resistance from fossil fuel-dependent nations and industries.
The treaty's success depends on minimizing corporate interference and protecting scientific discussions from undue influence.

Key quote:

"The widespread support for the treaty is also striking. It comes from not only researchers, but also the public, civil society and businesses — 'all the stars are aligned,' as one of my colleagues says."

— Martin Wagner, Author

Why this matters:

This treaty represents a critical step toward improving public health by mitigating the environmental damage caused by plastics. Read more from our newsroom: “Plastic will overwhelm us:” Scientists say health should be the core of global plastic treaty.

Read the full story here.

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BrewDog sells Scottish ‘rewilding’ estate it bought only five years ago

Latest disposal by ‘punk’ beer company follows £37m loss and closure of 10 pubsBrewDog has sold a Highlands rewilding estate it bought with great fanfare in 2020 after posting losses last year of £37m on its beer businesses.The company paid £8.8m for Kinrara near Aviemore and pledged it would plant millions of trees on a “staggering” 50 sq km of land, initially telling customers the project would be partly funded by sales of its Lost Forest beer. Continue reading...

BrewDog has sold a Highlands rewilding estate it bought with great fanfare in 2020 after posting losses last year of £37m on its beer businesses.The company paid £8.8m for Kinrara near Aviemore and pledged it would plant millions of trees on a “staggering” 50 sq km of land, initially telling customers the project would be partly funded by sales of its Lost Forest beer.It retracted many of its original claims, admitting the estate was smaller, at 37 sq km, and the tree-planting area smaller still. It would never soak up the 550,000 tonnes of CO2 every year it originally claimed but a maximum of a million tonnes in 100 years.The venture, which was part of since-abandoned efforts by co-founder James Watt to brand the business as carbon-negative or neutral, was beset with further problems. Critics said the native trees planted there were failing to grow and buildings were sold off.Now run by a new executive team, the self-styled ‘punk’ beer company announced in early September that it had lost £37m last year while recording barely any sales growth. About 2,000 pubs delisted BrewDog products as consumer interest soured and the company announced it was closing 10 of its bars, including its flagship outlet in Aberdeen.Kinrara, which covers 3,764 hectares (9,301 acres) of the Monadhliath mountains, is the latest asset to be sold by the company. It has been bought by Oxygen Conservation, a limited company funded by wealthy rewilding enthusiasts.Founded only four years ago, Oxygen Conservation has very quickly acquired 12 UK estates covering over 20,234 hectares. It aims to prove that nature restoration and woodland creation can be profitable.Rich Stockdale, Oxygen Conservation’s chief executive, disputed claims that the initial restoration work at Kinrara had failed. He said his company planned to continue BrewDog’s programme of peatland restoration and woodland creation.“We were blown away by the job that had been done; far better than we expected,” Stockdale said. “No woodland creation or environmental restoration project is without its challenges. [But] genuinely, we were astounded about the quality to which the estate’s been delivered.”Oxygen Conservation’s expansion has been cited as evidence that private investors can play a significant role in nature conservation by helping plug the gap between project costs and public funding.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe company owns three estates in Scotland, two of them in the Cairngorms and Scottish Borders and the third along the Firth of Tay. Its chief backers are Oxygen House, set up by the statistician Dr Mark Dixon, and Blue and White Capital, which was set up by Tony Bloom, owner of Brighton & Hove Albion football club.NatureScot, the government conservation agency, said this week it believed it could raise more than £100m in private and public investment for nature restoration, despite widespread scepticism about the approach.Oxygen Conservation, which values its portfolio at £300m, believes it can profit from selling high-value carbon credits to industry, building renewable energy projects and developing eco-tourism.

Business

Forests

Energy

BP predicts higher oil and gas demand, suggesting world will not hit 2050 net zero target

Conflict in Ukraine and Middle East as well as trade tariffs are making states focus on energy securityBusiness live – latest updatesBP has raised its forecasts for oil and gas demand, suggesting global net zero target for 2050 will not be met, in the latest sign the transition to clean energy is decelerating.The energy company’s closely watched outlook report has estimated that oil use is on track to hit 83m barrels a day in 2050, a rise of 8% compared with its previous estimate of 77m barrels a day. Continue reading...

BP has raised its forecasts for oil and gas demand, suggesting global net zero target for 2050 will not be met, in the latest sign the transition to clean energy is decelerating.The energy company’s closely watched outlook report has estimated that oil use is on track to hit 83m barrels a day in 2050, a rise of 8% compared with its previous estimate of 77m barrels a day.The current trajectory of the energy transition means natural gas demand could hit 4,806 cubic metres in 2050, BP said, up 1.6% from its previous estimate of 4,729 cubic metres.In order to meet global net zero targets by 2050, the fall in oil demand would have to occur sooner and with greater intensity, dropping to about 85m barrels a day by 2035 and about 35m barrels a day by 2050, BP said.The world currently consumes about 100m barrels a day of oil.Spencer Dale, the BP chief economist, added that geopolitical tensions, such as the war in Ukraine, conflicts in the Middle East and increasing use of tariffs, had intensified demands around national energy security.“For some, it may mean reducing dependency on imported fossil fuels, and accelerating the transition to greater electrification, powered by domestic low-carbon energy,” he said. “We may start to see the emergence of ‘electrostates’.”However the report found it could also give rise to an increased preference for domestically produced rather than imported energy.It comes as the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, looks at ways the government could encourage drilling in the North Sea without breaking a manifesto promise not to grant new licences on new parts of the British sea bed.Despite rapid growth in renewable energy, oil is still forecast to remain the single largest source of primary global energy supply for most of next two decades, at 30% in 2035, down only slightly from its current share.Renewables are forecast to rise from 10% of the primary energy supply in 2023 to 15% in 2035, BP said, and are not expected to surpass oil until towards the end of the 2040s.BP also found that “the longer the energy system remains on its current pathway, the harder it will be to remain within a 2C carbon budget”, as emissions continue to rise.The carbon budget is how much CO2 can still be emitted by humanity while limiting global temperature rises to 2C. BP’s modelling has found that on the current trajectory, cumulative carbon emissions will exceed this limit by the early 2040s.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotion“This raises the risk that an extended period of delay could increase the economic and social cost of remaining within a 2C budget,” it said.BP has attracted anger from environmental campaigners in recent months after abandoning green targets in favour of ramping up oil and gas production.The green strategy was set by its previous chief executive, Bernard Looney, who was appointed by outgoing chair Helge Lund in 2020 to transform the business into an integrated energy company. However, the transition was undermined by a rise in global oil and gas prices, as well as the shock departure of Looney in 2023.Looney’s successor, Murray Auchincloss, set out a “fundamental reset” this year after the activist hedge fund Elliott Management amassed a multibillion-pound stake in the company amid growing investor dissatisfaction over its sluggish share price.BP’s outlook predicts wind and solar power generation will meet more than 80% of the increase in electricity demand by 2035, with half of this occurring in China.The world’s second biggest economy is also its biggest source of carbon dioxide. This week Beijing announced plans to cut its emissions by between 7% and 10% of their peak by 2035, though this is well below the 30% cut that some experts have argued is necessary.

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Energy

CO2

United Utilities underspent £52m on vital work in Windermere, FoI reveals

Privatised water company criticised over efforts to connect private septic tanks to mains and cut pollutionBusiness live – latest updatesThe water company United Utilities has underspent by more than £50m on vital work in Windermere, north-west England, to connect private septic tanks to the mains network and reduce sewage pollution, it can be revealed.The financial regulator, Ofwat, revealed in response to a freedom of information request that the privatised water company had been allocated £129m to connect non-mains systems – mostly septic tanks – to the mains sewer network since 2000. Continue reading...

The water company United Utilities has underspent by more than £50m on vital work in Windermere, north-west England, to connect private septic tanks to the mains network and reduce sewage pollution, it can be revealed.The financial regulator, Ofwat, revealed in response to a freedom of information request that the privatised water company had been allocated £129m to connect non-mains systems – mostly septic tanks – to the mains sewer network since 2000.The company has spent £76.7m in almost 25 years, leaving £52m unspent.Save Windermere, the campaign group that submitted the request, has mapped areas where private sewerage systems are likely to be significantly affecting the water quality. It is calling on the water company to produce a high-profile campaign to connect the septic tank properties to the mains.United Utilities pointed out it could not force property owners to sign up to the main network, but said it was involved in community outreach to encourage businesses and individuals to do so.Under section 101 (a) of the 1991 Water Industry Act, property owners can request a connection to the public sewer system if an existing private sewerage system – serving two or more premises or a locality – is causing, or is likely to cause, environmental or amenity problems.Matt Staniek, the founder and director of Save Windermere, said only one scheme had been completed in the Windermere catchment in two decades, which connected only 27 properties to the mains.He said: “There should have been far more effort to inform local communities about their right to request a mains connection. When connection studies have been carried out in the past, they should have been acted on.“Any work that doesn’t aim to connect private properties to the mains … is a smokescreen. It’s greenwash that pulls us further away from a sewage-free Windermere.”Treated and untreated sewage discharges from United Utilities facilities represent the principle source of phosphorous pollution into Windermere. The first comprehensive analysis of water quality in England’s largest lake revealed bathing water quality across most of the lake was poor throughout the summer owing to high levels of sewage pollution.As well as pollution from water company assets, sewage pollution is known to enter the lake from private septic tanks. The water company attributes 30% of phosphorus loading in the lake to non-mains drainage.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionMapping by Save Windermere has identified areas where targeted work could take place to connect non-mains sewerage to the mains. These include areas around the south basin of Windermere, where more than 5 miles of shoreline – including residential properties, holiday accommodations and tourism businesses – relies entirely on non-mains.A United Utilities spokesperson, said: “There are numerous ways for people and businesses to connect to the public sewerage system. As well as needing enough demand from customers in a particular area, there are additional criteria that also has to be met – including the viability of the scheme and customers being willing to pay to connect to the network and for ongoing wastewater charges.“We are currently working with communities in three areas in the catchment to drum up the necessary interest.”

Business

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Louisiana's $3B Power Upgrade for Meta Project Raises Questions About Who Should Foot the Bill

Meta is racing to construct its largest data center yet, a $10 billion facility in northeast Louisiana as big as 70 football fields and requiring more than twice the electricity of New Orleans

HOLLY RIDGE, La. (AP) — In a rural corner of Louisiana, Meta is building one of the world's largest data centers, a $10 billion behemoth as big as 70 football fields that will consume more power in a day than the entire city of New Orleans at the peak of summer.While the colossal project is impossible to miss in Richland Parish, a farming community of 20,000 residents, not everything is visible, including how much the social media giant will pay toward the more than $3 billion in new electricity infrastructure needed to power the facility. Watchdogs have warned that in the rush to capitalize on the AI-driven data center boom, some states are allowing massive tech companies to direct expensive infrastructure projects with limited oversight.Mississippi lawmakers allowed Amazon to bypass regulatory approval for energy infrastructure to serve two data centers it is spending $10 billion to build. In Indiana, a utility is proposing a data center-focused subsidiary that operates outside normal state regulations. And while Louisiana says it has added consumer safeguards, it lags behind other states in its efforts to insulate regular power consumers from data center-related costs. Mandy DeRoche, an attorney for the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, says there is less transparency due to confidentiality agreements and rushed approvals.“You can’t follow the facts, you can’t follow the benefits or the negative impacts that could come to the service area or to the community,” DeRoche said. Private deals for public power supply Under contract with Meta, power company Entergy agreed to build three gas-powered plants that would produce 2,262 megawatts — equivalent to a fifth of Entergy's current power supply in Louisiana. The Public Service Commission approved Meta’s infrastructure plan in August after Entergy agreed to bolster protections to prevent a spike in residential rates.Nonetheless, nondisclosure agreements conceal how much Meta will pay.Consumer advocates tried but failed to compel Meta to provide sworn testimony, submit to discovery and face cross-examination during a regulatory review. Regulators reviewed Meta’s contract with Entergy, but were barred from revealing details. Meta did not address AP’s questions about transparency, while Louisiana's economic development agency and Entergy say nondisclosure agreements are standard to protect sensitive commercial data. Davante Lewis — the only one of five public service commissioners to vote against the plan — said he's still unclear how much electricity the center will use, if gas-powered plants are the most economical option nor if it will create the promised 500 jobs. “There’s certain information we should know and need to know but don’t have,” Lewis said. Additionally, Meta is exempt from paying sales tax under a 2024 Louisiana law that the state acknowledges could lead to “tens of millions of dollars or more each year” in lost revenue.Meta has agreed to fund about half the cost of building the power plants over 15 years, including cost overruns, but not maintenance and operation, said Logan Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, a consumer advocacy group. Public Service Commission Jean-Paul Coussan insists there will be “very little” impact on ratepayers.But watchdogs warn Meta could pull out of or not renew its contract, leaving the public to pay for the power plants over the rest of their 30-year life span, and all grid users are expected to help pay for the $550 million transmission line serving Meta’s facility.Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard University’s Electricity Law Initiative, said tech companies should be required to pay “every penny so the public is not left holding the bag.” How is this tackled in other states? Elsewhere, tech companies are not being given such leeway. More than a dozen states have taken steps to protect households and business ratepayers from paying for rising electricity costs tied to energy-hungry data centers. Pennsylvania’s utilities commission is drafting a model rate structure to insulate customers from rising costs related to data centers. New Jersey’s utilities regulators are studying whether data centers cause “unreasonable” cost increases for other users. Oregon passed legislation this year ordering utilities regulators to develop new, and likely higher, power rates for data centers. Locals have mixed feelings Some Richland Parish residents fear a boom-and-bust cycle once construction ends. Others expect a boost in school and health care funding. Meta said it plans to invest in 1,500 megawatts of renewable energy in Louisiana and $200 million in water and road infrastructure in Richland Parish.“We don’t come from a wealthy parish and the money is much needed,” said Trae Banks, who runs a drywall business that has tripled in size since Meta arrived.In the nearby town of Delhi, Mayor Jesse Washington believes the data center will eventually have a positive impact on his community of 2,600.But for now, the construction traffic frustrates residents and property prices are skyrocketing as developers try to house thousands of construction workers. More than a dozen low-income families were evicted from a trailer park whose owners are building housing for incoming Meta workers, Washington says.“We have a lot of concerned people — they’ve put hardship on a lot of people in certain areas here," the mayor said. “I just want to see people from Delhi benefit from this.”Brook reported from New Orleans. Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

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California’s marijuana industry gets a break under new law suspending tax hike

California's legal weed industry is still overshadowed by the larger black market. A new state law gives businesses a break by delaying a tax increase.

In summary California’s legal weed industry is still overshadowed by the larger black market. A new state law gives businesses a break by delaying a tax increase. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a bill to roll back taxes on recreational weed in an effort to give some relief to an industry that has struggled to supersede its illicit counterpart since voters legalized marijuana almost 10 years ago. The law will temporarily revert the cannabis excise tax to 15% until 2028, suspending an increase to 19% levied earlier this year. The law is meant to help dispensaries that proponents say are operating under slim margins due to being bogged down by years of overregulation. “We’re rolling back this cannabis tax hike so the legal market can continue to grow, consumers can access safe products, and our local communities see the benefits,” Newsom said in a statement, and that reducing the tax will allow legal businesses to remain competitive and boost their long-term growth. An excise tax is a levy imposed by the state before sales taxes are applied. It’s applied to the cannabis industry under a 2022 agreement between the state and marijuana companies. It replaced a different kind of fee that was supposed to raise revenue for social programs, such as child care assistance, in accordance with the 2016 ballot measure that legalized cannabis. For years, the cannabis industry has lobbied against the tax, arguing that it hurts an industry overshadowed by a thriving illicit drug market. “By stopping this misguided tax hike, the governor and Legislature chose smart policy that grows revenue by keeping the legal market viable instead of driving consumers back to dangerous, untested illicit products,” Amy O’Gorman, executive director of the California Cannabis Operators Association, said in a statement. Since its legalization, the recreational weed industry has struggled to outpace the illegal market as farmers flooded the industry and prices began to drop. Taxable cannabis sales have slowly declined since their peak in the second quarter of 2021 of more than $1.5 billion to $1.2 billion four years later, according to data from the state Department of Tax and Fee Administration. Legal sales make up about 40% of all weed consumption, according to the state Department of Cannabis Control. Several nonprofits that receive grants through the tax opposed the bill, arguing that it will threaten services for low-income children, substance abuse programs and environmental protections. In the Emerald Triangle, where the heartland of the industry lies nestled in the northern corner of the state, conservation organizations said they were disappointed in the governor and that it was a step backwards for addressing environmental degradation caused by illegal growers in years past. “All this bill does is reduce the resources we have to remedy the harms of the illegal market,” said Alicia Hamann, executive director of Friends of the Eel River in Humboldt County. Many nonprofits supported spiking other fees in agreement with lawmakers and industry groups that the excise tax would be increased three years later, Hamann said. “It feels a little bit like a stab in the back,” she said.

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A documentary on the profits international chemical companies are gaining in Africa at cost of the health of small-scaled-farmers and consumers.International chemical companies sell high toxic agro-chemicals in Kenya, which are banned since long in Europe. They are banned because their ingredients cause cancer and have a major negative impact on the nature and environment. Anyhow – in developing countries like Kenya those toxic chemicals are sold without any regulations through small agro-shops all over the country. The small scaled farmers do believe in the promises of better and safer harvest those companies give. Today, the use of pesticides even inside the villages is already a daily business. Furthermore many of them already depend on hybrid seeds, old and resistant seeds supplants. Most of the consumers do not have the knowledge, how dangerous those agro-chemicals are: the WHO announced that annually 346.000 people die, caused by accidentally poisoning with those chemicals, 2/3 of them within developing countries.In the face of world food, industry is trying to push its way into the markets. On the contrary, statistics and alternative farming methods in East Africa show that it no longer needs chemicals and hybrid seeds to feed the world, but a general rethinking.

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A puppet animation about employment.

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Sashiko as Cultural Sustainability

When we talk about Sustainability, we tend to focus on the sustainable solutions based on physical resources. However, very frequently we overlook a key part for creating a successful sustainable society: Cultural Sustainability.

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A unified effort is crucial for the successful negotiation of the global plastics treaty

Related News

BrewDog sells Scottish ‘rewilding’ estate it bought only five years ago

BP predicts higher oil and gas demand, suggesting world will not hit 2050 net zero target

United Utilities underspent £52m on vital work in Windermere, FoI reveals

Louisiana's $3B Power Upgrade for Meta Project Raises Questions About Who Should Foot the Bill

California’s marijuana industry gets a break under new law suspending tax hike

Suggested Viewing

Toxic Business

Voice of Vanilla

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Sashiko as Cultural Sustainability

1948 and Counting

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A unified effort is crucial for the successful negotiation of the global plastics treaty

Related News

BrewDog sells Scottish ‘rewilding’ estate it bought only five years ago

BP predicts higher oil and gas demand, suggesting world will not hit 2050 net zero target

United Utilities underspent £52m on vital work in Windermere, FoI reveals

Louisiana's $3B Power Upgrade for Meta Project Raises Questions About Who Should Foot the Bill

California’s marijuana industry gets a break under new law suspending tax hike

Suggested Viewing

Toxic Business

Voice of Vanilla

Job 1

Sashiko as Cultural Sustainability

1948 and Counting

Join us to forgea sustainable future

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Join us to forge
a sustainable future