event
Global Governance Centre
Wednesday
30
September
waste plastic

Trade and trade policy in the fight against plastic pollution: What are the challenges and opportunities?

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Online event at the Geneva Trade Week

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This event brings together new evidence and policy analysis on how trade and trade policy can help reduce plastic pollution, exploring whether they can help,  threaten or impede progress.

In 2019, over 180 governments agreed to the 'Plastics Amendments' to the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes, bringing in new requirements and procedures to better regulate trade in plastic waste. However, significantly more remains to be done if the international community is going to tackle plastic pollution – including through stronger coherence of trade, development and environmental policies. 

Please note that registrations are required on the  Geneva Trade Week website for anyone who would wish to join any of the sessions. It is also possible to follow the session live on the Geneva Trade Platform (GTP)’s Youtube channel.
Here you can find information on the Geneva Trade Week Schedule

 

Key Questions:


1. What is the state of play in plastic trade flows and trade-related actions to reduce plastic pollution?

2. How can trade and trade policy challenge efforts to reduce plastic pollution? 

3. How can international cooperation on trade, environment and development — in multilateral environmental agreements, in trade agreements, at the WTO and elsewhere - support efforts to reduce plastic pollution?

4. What are the opportunities to harness trade policy to tackle plastic pollution and encourage a more circular plastics economy? 

 

Tentative Programme

 

Moderator: Carolyn Deere Birkbeck, Senior Researcher, The Global Governance Centre, The Graduate Institute

 

Welcome Remarks: 

  • Joyce Msuya, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director, UN Environment Programme (tbc)

  • Dona Bertarelli, UNCTAD Special Advisor on the Blue Economy (tbc)

  • Alan Wolff, Deputy Director-General, WTO

 

Speakers: 

  • Winnie Lau, Senior Manager, Preventing Ocean Plastics, Pew Charitable Trusts

  • Carlos Martin-Novella, Deputy Executive Director, Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions Secretariat, UN Environment Programme

  • Diana Barrowclough/David Vivas/Steve MacFeeley, Senior Economist/Legal Officer/Director, UNCTAD

  • Carroll Muffett, President & CEO, Center for International Environmental Law

  • Kristin Hughes, Managing Director, Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP), World Economic Forum

 

 

Co-hosted by: Graduate Institute, UNCTAD, UNEP, WEF, CIEL, and PEW


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Partial financial support for this event was provided by the Swiss Network of International Studies (SNIS)