In advance of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-5), SOLAS calls attention to the growing body of scientific literature demonstrating that microplastic exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere is integral to the global plastics cycle.
The global community has agreed that there is a global plastic pollution problem that must be regulated and the above evidence points to the need for States to protect the marine environment and the atmosphere. To do so there must be a recognition of the exchange of microplastics at the ocean-atmosphere interface in the Plastics Treaty, and that this exchange has implications for policy design.
The recent judgment from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea on climate change and the ocean found that greenhouse gases moving through the atmosphere into the ocean are marine pollution. The findings of this judgment emphasise the importance of recognising the air-sea interface in international legal frameworks.
We are concerned about the absence of the ocean-atmosphere exchange of microplastics in the current draft of the proposed Global Plastic Treaty (INC 5 Non-Paper 3). It is essential that regulatory decisions be informed by sound and robust science and the most up-to-date science highlights the need for this interface to be included in the Treaty.
The SOLAS community has specific expertise and can provide critical insights into interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean, and therefore, SOLAS is best placed to make a multi-faceted contribution to discussions on microplastics exchange between the ocean and atmosphere.
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