No agreement in sight as countries reject draft text of global plastic pollution treaty
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CNA
3 days ago
- CNA
Between protection and policing, can we really keep kids safe on the internet with new laws?
Mr Tan likened this approach to successful frameworks in other sectors. In cybersecurity, for example, critical infrastructure employs layered standards, continuous monitoring and red-teaming exercises to anticipate threats. In public health, risk-scaled interventions, adaptable protocols and public education campaigns have proven effective in disease outbreak response. "When you align policy for direction, technology for enablement and education for sustainment, and build a culture that embraces them, you create an environment that not only protects effectively, but also adapts, improves and builds trust of those it's meant to protect," Mr Tan said. Are age-based content policies, similar to those in the UK and Australia, potentially on the horizon for Singapore, then? Mr Kieran Donovan, co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based startup k-ID, which helps online service providers comply with global age-related regulations, said Singaporean regulators are known for being measured and deliberate. They take the time to gather input from a wide range of stakeholders, including the industries that will be affected, and it is no different in the online safety space. "Singapore is taking a thoughtful approach, carefully observing international developments while considering local cultural contexts and capabilities," he said. For example, Mr Donovan said that through the Ministry of Education, the government is able to allocate sufficient resources to teach digital literacy and cyber awareness to children, helping them become more aware of online harms and dangers. Asked about the most realistic enforcement mechanisms to keep pace with and potentially outsmart users' resourcefulness, Mr Donovan acknowledged that every protective system will face attempts to bypass it. "But that doesn't mean we throw the whole system out. We work tirelessly to keep protecting more people online every single day," he said. "Unfortunately, there are those who call for the removal of all online protections, which would be counterproductive to the protection of the rights of the child." Mr Donovan stressed that there is a place and need for regulation for all the reasons mentioned previously. "But regulation alone cannot solve this problem, and in Singapore, that includes continuing with stronger education and training of both parents and children that ultimately empowers our children to be smart and safe digital natives." Building on that, Ms Quinn also stressed the importance of engaging young people directly in shaping the rules that affect them.
CNA
3 days ago
- CNA
Plastic pollution treaty stalled as Geneva talks end without deal
GENEVA: Delegates discussing the world's first legally binding treaty to tackle plastic pollution failed to reach consensus, diplomats said on Friday (Aug 15), voicing disappointment and even rage that the 10-day talks produced no deal. Delegates had been seeking a breakthrough in the deadlocked United Nations' talks in Geneva, but states pushing for an ambitious treaty said that the latest text released overnight failed to meet their expectations. The chair of the negotiations Ecuador's Luis Vayas Valdivieso adjourned the session with a pledge to resume talks at an undetermined later date, drawing weak applause from exhausted delegates who had worked into the early hours. French ecology minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told the meeting's closing session that she was "enraged because despite genuine efforts by many, and real progress in discussions, no tangible results have been obtained." In an apparent reference to oil-producing nations, Colombia's delegate Haendel Rodriguez said a deal had been "blocked by a small number of states who simply did not want an agreement". Diplomats and climate advocates had warned earlier this month that efforts by the European Union and small island states to cap virgin plastic production - fuelled by petroleum, coal and gas - faced opposition from petrochemical-producing countries and the US under President Donald Trump. US delegate John Thompson from the State Department declined to comment as he left the talks. The path forward for the negotiations is uncertain. UN officials and some countries, including Britain, said that negotiations should resume but others described a broken process. "It is very clear that the current process will not work," South Africa's delegate said. More than 1,000 delegates have gathered in Geneva for the sixth round of talks, after a meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) in South Korea late last year ended without a deal. Negotiations had gone into overtime on Thursday as countries scrambled to bridge deep divisions over the extent of future curbs. Many, including Danish environment minister Magnus Heunicke, who negotiated on behalf of the EU, were disappointed that the final push did not yield any results. "Of course we cannot hide that it is tragic and deeply disappointing to see some countries trying to block an agreement," he told reporters while vowing to keep working on the treaty necessary to tackle "one of the biggest pollution problems we have on earth." Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, also pledged to continue work. "We did not get where we want but people want a deal," she said. The most divisive issues include capping production, managing plastic products and chemicals of concern, and financing to help developing countries implement the treaty. Anti-plastics campaigners voiced disappointment at the outcome but welcomed states' rejection of a weak deal that failed to place limits on plastics production. "No treaty is better than a bad treaty," said Ana Rocha, Global Plastics Policy Director from environmental group GAIA.
CNA
3 days ago
- CNA
Global plastic pollution treaty talks extended in 'haze' of confusion
GENEVA: Talks on striking a global treaty on combating plastic pollution were extended an extra day into Friday (Aug 15) but with no clear endgame in sight. Ten days of negotiations at the United Nations in Geneva were due to wrap up on Thursday but with 23 minutes of the day left, the talks were prolonged. However, after a day of frantic negotiations, there were few signs that rival country blocs were any closer to bridging their differences and striking a text on dealing with the scourge of plastic that pollutes land, oceans and people's bodies. "As consultations of my revised draft text are still ongoing, this plenary is therefore adjourned, to be convened on Aug 15, 2025, at a time to be announced," talks chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso said before gavelling the session closed. The plenary session - bringing all 185 negotiating countries together in the UN Palais des Nations' main assembly hall - lasted less than a minute, with shocked reactions among the delegates packing the room. "COMPLETE HAZE" "It's such a mess. I've never seen that. The room is full of people standing, trying to understand what's going on," Aleksandar Rankovic from The Common Initiative think-tank, told AFP. "It smells like no deal. "The room is very discontented," he said, but "even if people don't believe that a deal is achievable this time, they also might want to be pushing the text in their direction up to the very last minute". Throughout the day, Ecuadoran diplomat Vayas was doing the rounds between regional delegations, trying to stitch together a consensus agreement following a botched attempt on Wednesday. "We are in a complete haze. We've got the impression something is missing," a diplomatic source in one of the regional delegations told AFP. During the long hours of waiting, backroom negotiations and informal meetings, one head of delegation told AFP they were convinced there would be another "compromise" text coming, while another, from another continent, despaired at seeing "neither text nor process", fearing a complete failure of the long negotiations that began more than two years ago in Nairobi. ELUSIVE MIDDLE GROUND After three years of negotiations, nations wanting bold action to turn the tide on plastic garbage were trying to build last-minute bridges with a group of oil-producing states. "We need to have a coherent global treaty. We can't do it on our own," said Environment Minister Deborah Barasa of Kenya, a member of the High Ambition Coalition seeking aggressive action on plastic waste. Barasa told AFP that nations could strike a treaty now, then work out some of the finer details down the line. "We need to come to a middle ground," she said. "And then we can have a step-wise approach in terms of building up this treaty ... and ending plastic pollution." "We need to leave with the treaty," she added. Back-to-back regional and cross-regional groups huddled in meetings throughout Thursday. The High Ambition Coalition, which includes the European Union, Britain and Canada, and many African and Latin American countries, wants to see language on reducing plastic production and the phasing out of toxic chemicals used in plastics. A cluster of mostly oil-producing states calling themselves the Like-Minded Group - including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia, Iran, and Malaysia - want the treaty to focus primarily on waste management. MACRON'S CALL TO ACTION The plastic pollution problem is so ubiquitous that microplastics have been found on the highest mountain peaks, in the deepest ocean trench and scattered throughout almost every part of the human body. On current trends, annual production of fossil-fuel-based plastics will nearly triple by 2060 to 1.2 billion tonnes, while waste will exceed one billion tonnes, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. With 15 million tonnes of plastic dumped in the ocean every minute, French President Emmanuel Macron asked: "What are we waiting for to act?"
