Contours of an International Plastics Climate Club

To achieve the Paris Agreement’s objectives, a fundamental transformation of the global plastics industry is required. The paper synthesizes key mitigation strategies for the plastics industry, surveys the existing global governance landscape and assesses its relevance with respect to the identified mitigation strategies and on that basis proposes key elements for a climate club for the plastics industry. Four complementary strategies will be necessary to achieve climate neutrality: 1. utilizing renewable and low-carbon energy inputs, 2. increasing recycling, 3. using alternative feedstocks, and 4. reducing demand. The existing global governance landscape for plastic hardly addresses greenhouse gas emissions explicitly. Governance institutions related to the use of renewable energy and demand reductions are lacking in particular. Moreover, after the collapse of the negotiations of the global plastic pollution treaty all hopes to close at least some of the identified gaps have been lost. An international plastics climate club could help to reinvigorate international collaboration and foster climate neutrality and defossilisation in the sector. It could provide guidance and signal through specific targets. It could set rules for collective action, e.g., through standards for green polymers, leverage trade measures to incentivize trade in more recycling-friendly staple plastics. It could create a transparency framework to establish a more robust information base for future, more far-reaching commitments. It could leverage means of implementation especially for developing countries, e.g., through a packaging and single-use plastic fund that is fed through a surcharge on such plastic products and funds their mechanical or chemical recycling. And finally, the club could create knowledge and learning by systematically evaluating policy instruments and acting as a policy learning accelerator.