Guest post: The conflicting practices in using land to tackle climate change
COP29 Baku
Countries gathered in South Korea failed to land a deal on plastic production last week. Plastics account for 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon Brief analysis found that, without a deal, plastics could take up half the remaining “carbon budget” for keeping temperatures to 1.5C by 2100 (see “projected emissions” on the chart above).
If the world had struck an agreement to reduce plastic production by 40% by 2040, relative to 2025 levels – as proposed by Ottawa, Rwanda and Peru earlier this year – plastics would emit 52bn tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2050.