The three-day meeting of the G7 Environment, Energy and Oceans Ministers closed on the 21st. The meeting called on all countries in the world to act together to reduce marine plastic pollution.
The conference aimed to cooperate on climate change, marine protection and clean energy. Participants discussed global climate degradation, marine health and plastic pollution, as well as countermeasures against plastic waste pollution in the global ocean, and recycling of plastics, recycling Use and reduce pollution to reach a consensus.
The ministers who attended the meeting said that they would promote the development of low-cost plastic recycling and other technologies, and agreed to launch the G7 initiative on Earth observation and integrated coastal management, which will help to better understand the state of the ocean and coast.
According to data released by the conference, since the 1950s, 8.3 billion tons of plastics have been produced worldwide, of which 6.3 billion tons have become plastic waste. At present, there are hundreds of millions of tons of plastic garbage in the global ocean, which harms seabirds and marine fish. Class survival. Many experts attending the meeting unanimously said in an interview that the only way to reduce plastic waste is that countries must work to reduce and eliminate disposable plastic products.
The meeting also discussed the implementation of the Marine Plastics Charter signed during the G7 Summit in June this year. This document calls on governments to stop using the ocean as an open dump and set standards to improve the reuse and recycling of plastics. Level, but also called on companies to take responsibility for plastic waste disposal. However, it is not binding, the United States and Japan have not signed.
Ministers from Norway, Vietnam, South Africa and other large multinational companies, non-governmental organizations, and representatives of research institutions were invited to attend the meeting and expressed support for reducing marine plastic pollution.