This week, Busan, South Korea, is hosting final round negotiations over a legally-binding agreement designed to address the issue of plastic pollution across the world. Going into the week, there are still some major issues to be resolved. The primary divide is on how much plastic companies (and countries) are allowed to produce.
A proposal by the ‘High-Ambition Coalition’ (HAC), consisting of the European Union and many African and Asian countries has proposed a holistic look at the problem, placing guardrails and caps on each step of the plastic lifecycle- production, consumption and end-of-life. Some of the most stringent measures include fixed caps on production.
Some of the major holdouts in the process have been countries with fossil-fuel focussed economies, many Middle-Eastern nations, China and the US for example. These countries have expressed concern with the more restrictive measures that would curb the production of the capacities of their economies, arguing that “many countries do not seem themselves represented in [HAC’s proposal].”
1 comment:
Hi Ary, this is a great example of the holdout problem in plastic waste management. I was reminded of Becker’s theory on interest groups and I think there’s probably an interesting parallel: countries, much like interest groups, face strong incentive costs or dead weight loss when their economic priorities are threatened. This creates a powerful resistance to policies such as production caps that could potentially achieve collective goals but impose concentrated costs on specific players like what you mentioned, the US. This raises the question: How can the treaty create strong enough incentives for these holdout countries to share the costs of plastic waste reduction? If we think of countries as analogous to interest groups, Becker’s theory suggests that aligning incentives with their economic interests could be essentail. I was thinking if we can possibly solve this issue by redsitributing costs and benefits. For instance, theoretically, could wealthier nations within the HAC offer financial or technological support to holdout countries, effectively redistributing the costs of compliance? For instance, a global fund financed by plastic taxes or other mechanisms could help fossil fuel-dependent economies transition to more sustainable industries.
Post a Comment