Day: November 30, 2024

BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA — The world’s nations will wrap up negotiating a treaty this weekend to address the global plastic pollution crisis.

Their meeting is scheduled to conclude Sunday or early Monday in Busan, South Korea, where many environmental organizations have flocked to push for a treaty to address the volume of production and toxic chemicals used in plastic products.

Greenpeace said it escalated its pressure Saturday by sending four international activists to Daesan, South Korea, who boarded a tanker headed into port to load chemicals used to make plastics.

Graham Forbes, who leads the Greenpeace delegation in Busan, said the action is meant to remind world leaders they have a clear choice: Deliver a treaty that protects people and the planet, or side with industry and sacrifice the health of every living person and future generations.

Here’s what to know about plastics:

Every year, the world produces more than 400 million tons of new plastic.

The use of plastics has quadrupled over the past 30 years. Plastic is ubiquitous. And every day, the equivalent of 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic are dumped into the world’s oceans, rivers and lakes, the U.N. said. Most nations agreed to make the first global, legally binding plastic pollution accord, including in the oceans, by the end of 2024.

Plastic production could climb about 70% by 2040 without policy changes.

The production and use of plastics globally is set to reach 736 million tons by 2040, according to the intergovernmental Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Panama is leading an effort to address the exponential growth of plastic production as part of the treaty, supported by more than 100 countries. There’s just too much plastic, said Juan Carlos Monterrey, head of Panama’s delegation.

“If we don’t have production in this treaty, it is not only going to be horribly sad, but the treaty may as well be called the greenwashing recycling treaty, not the plastics treaty,” he said in an interview. “Because the problem is not going to be fixed.”

China, the United States and Germany are the biggest plastics players.

China was by far the biggest exporter of plastic products in 2023, followed by Germany and the U.S., according to the Plastics Industry Association.

Together, the three nations account for 33% of the total global plastics trade, the association said.

The United States supports having an article in the treaty that addresses supply, or plastic production, a senior member of the U.S. delegation told The Associated Press Saturday.

Most plastic ends up as waste

Less than 10% of plastics are recycled. Most of the world’s plastic goes to landfills, pollutes the environment or is burned.

Sarah Dunlop, head of plastics and human health at the Minderoo Foundation, said chemicals are leaching out of plastics and “making us sick.”

The International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Plastics held an event about the impact of plastics Saturday on the sidelines of the talks. They want the treaty to fully recognize their rights and the universal human right to a healthy, clean, safe and sustainable environment.

Juan Mancias of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation in Texas spoke about feeling a spiritual connection to the land.

“Five hundred years ago, we had clean water, clean air, and there was no plastics,” he said. “What happened?”

Many plastics are used for packaging

About 40% of all plastics are used in packaging, according to the United Nations. This includes single-use plastic food and beverage containers — water bottles, takeout containers, coffee lids, straws and shopping bags — that often end up polluting the environment.

U.N. Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen told negotiators in Busan the treaty must tackle this problem.

“Are there specific plastic items that we can live without, those that so often leak into the environment? Are there alternatives to these items? This is an issue we must agree on,” she said.
…

YANQING, CHINA — In a research facility in the northwest of Beijing, molecular biologist Li Jieping and his team harvest a cluster of seven unusually small potatoes, one as tiny as a quail’s egg, from a potted plant.

Grown under conditions that simulate predictions of higher temperatures at the end of the century, the potatoes provide an ominous sign of future food security.

At just 136 grams, the tubers weigh less than half that of a typical potato in China, where the most popular varieties are often twice the size of a baseball.

China is the world’s biggest producer of potatoes, which are crucial to global food security because of their high yield relative to other staple crops.

But they are particularly vulnerable to heat, and climate change, driven by fossil fuel emissions, is pushing temperatures to dangerous new heights while also worsening drought and flooding.

With an urgent need to protect food supplies, Li, a researcher at the International Potato Center (CIP) in Beijing, is leading a three-year study into the effects of higher temperatures on the vegetable. His team is focusing on China’s two most common varieties.

“I worry about what will happen in the future,” Li said. “Farmers will harvest fewer potato tubers, it will influence food security.”

Li’s team grew their crop over three months in a walk-in chamber set at 3 degrees Celsius above the current average temperature in northern Hebei and Inner Mongolia, the higher altitude provinces where potatoes are usually grown in China.

Their research, published in the journal Climate Smart Agriculture this month, found the higher temperatures accelerated tuber growth by 10 days, but cut potato yields by more than half.

Under current climate policies, the world is facing as much as 3.1 C of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100, according to a United Nations report released in October.

Farmers in China say they are already feeling the effect of extreme weather events.

In Inner Mongolia, dozens of workers clutching white sacks rush to gather potatoes dug up from the soil before the next downpour.

“The biggest challenge for potatoes this year is the heavy rain,” said manager Wang Shiyi. “It has caused various diseases… and greatly slowed down the harvest progress.”

Meanwhile, seed potato producer Yakeshi Senfeng Potato Industry Company has invested in aeroponic systems where plants are grown in the air under controlled conditions.

Farmers are increasingly demanding potato varieties that are higher-yielding and less susceptible to disease, particularly late blight, which caused the Irish Potato Famine of the mid-19th century and thrives in warm and humid conditions.

“Some new and more aggressive (late blight) strains have begun to appear, and they are more resistant to traditional prevention and control methods,” said general manager Li Xuemin, explaining the Inner Mongolia-based company’s strategy.

The research by CIP, which is headquartered in Lima, is part of a collaborative effort with the Chinese government to help farmers adapt to the warmer, wetter conditions.

In the greenhouse outside Li’s lab, workers swab pollen on white potato flowers to develop heat-tolerant varieties.

Li says Chinese farmers will need to make changes within the next decade, planting during spring instead of the start of summer, or moving to even higher altitudes to escape the heat.

“Farmers have to start preparing for climate change,” Li said. “If we don’t find a solution, they will make less money from lower yields and the price of potatoes may rise.” 
…

New data released Wednesday from a Chinese government-affiliated research firm showed sales of foreign-branded smartphones, including Apple’s iPhone, fell 44.25% year-on-year in China in October, while overall phone sales in China have increased 1.8%, Reuters reported.

The data released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology revealed sales of foreign-branded phones in China decreased to 6.22 million units last month, down from 11.149 million units a year earlier.

The decrease of foreign phone sales comes in the wake of Chinese tech conglomerate Huawei’s rise to the top of the phone market in China.

Huawei was widely popular in China’s smartphone market last year when it released the Mate 60 Pro, a phone with a tiny computer chip more advanced than any other chip previously made by a Chinese company.

Chinese consumers have eagerly embraced Huawei’s smartphones, drawn to the appeal of locally made technology — an option that has swayed many who might have previously chosen iPhones.

On Tuesday, the Chinese phone maker launched the next generation of the Mate 60 Pro, the Mate 70 series. The smartphone was described by Huawei’s consumer group chairman Richard Yu as the “smartest” Mate phone, The New York Times reported.

The Mate 70 series features hardware and software that are the most independent from Western influence to date. Highlights of Huawei’s newest phone include artificial intelligence-enabled functions and improved photography. The phone uses an operating system of HarmonyOS, which allows the smartphones to connect with smart devices.

Huawei’s ability to self-supply the chips required for its hardware and software represents a notable development, following previous U.S. measures to restrict the company’s access to key partners and suppliers.

AI technology relies on advanced semiconductor chips, a critical resource that has received attention amid tensions between Beijing and Washington, as both countries compete to dominate the advanced technology industry.

Apple’s iPhone 16 features AI capabilities, but these features have yet to be implemented in iPhones in China.

Apple, which considers China its second-most important market, has seen its market share decrease substantially. Apple CEO Tim Cook is traveling to China this week for the third time this year to attend an industry conference.
…

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N.’s children’s fund raised the alarm on Friday over the high rate of new HIV infections among young women and girls, warning they lacked access to prevention and treatment.

In a report ahead of world AIDS day on Sunday, UNICEF said that 96,000 girls and 41,000 boys aged 15-19 were newly infected with HIV in 2023, meaning seven out of 10 new adolescent infections were among girls.

In sub-Saharan Africa, nine out of 10 new HIV infections among 15- 19-year-olds were among girls in the most recent period for which data is available.

“Children and adolescents are not fully reaping the benefits of scaled up access to treatment and prevention services,” said UNICEF associate director of HIV/AIDS Anurita Bains.

“Yet children living with HIV must be prioritized when it comes to investing resources and efforts to scale up treatment for all, this includes the expansion of innovative testing technologies.”

As many as 77% of adults living with HIV have access to anti-retroviral therapy, but just 57% of children 14 and younger, and 65% of teenagers aged 15-19, can obtain lifesaving medicine.

Children 14 and younger account for only 3% of those living with HIV, but account for 12% — 76,000 — of AIDS-related deaths in 2023.

Around 1.3 million people contracted the disease in 2023, according to a report from the UNAIDS agency.

That is still more than three times higher than needed to reach the U.N.’s goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

Around 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses last year, the lowest level since a peak of 2.1 million in 2004, the report said ahead of World AIDS Day on Sunday.

Much of the progress was attributed to antiretroviral treatments that can reduce the amount of the virus in the blood of patients.

Out of the nearly 40 million people living with HIV around the world, some 9.3 million are not receiving treatment, the report warned. 
…