Negotiators must move “significantly” faster to agree on a landmark treaty to curb plastic pollution, the diplomat chairing talks warned yesterday, while many countries expressed frustration with the limited progress.
Nearly 200 countries are gathered in South Korea’s Busan with the goal of agreeing on a deal by the end of the week.
The process caps two years of talks over four previous rounds of negotiations that have been stalled by deep divisions about what the treaty should look like.
Photo: AFP
Addressing negotiators on the third day of talks, Luis Vayas Valdivieso warned that work was not advancing quickly enough.
“The progress has been limited and now time is of the essence,” the Ecuadoran diplomat said. “I must be honest with you, progress has been too slow. We need to speed up our work significantly.”
“We must accelerate our efforts to reach consensus on the binding instrument by December 1st,” he added.
His call was followed by a string of frustrated speeches from countries including Fiji, Panama, Norway and Colombia.
“While we here sit debating over semantics and procedures, the crisis worsens,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, Panama’s special representative for climate change. “We are here because microplastics have been found in the placentas of healthy women.”
“We are literally raising a generation that starts its life polluted before taking its first breath,” he added.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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The arrival of a cold front tomorrow could plunge temperatures into the mid-teens, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Temperatures yesterday rose to 28°C to 30°C in northern and eastern Taiwan, and 32°C to 33°C in central and southern Taiwan, CWA data showed. Similar but mostly cloudy weather is expected today, the CWA said. However, the arrival of a cold air mass tomorrow would cause a rapid drop in temperatures to 15°C cooler than the previous day’s highs. The cold front, which is expected to last through the weekend, would bring steady rainfall tomorrow, along with multiple waves of showers
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