Global emissions from plastic production could triple by mid-century, accounting for a fifth of the planet’s remaining carbon budget, an analysis has found.
Shocking new estimates released Wednesday by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory provide more evidence that the plastics industry is undermining the world’s response, said Heather McTeer Toney, executive director of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Beyond Petrochemicals campaign. climate change efforts.
The production of plastics made from fossil fuels is greenhouse gas intensive. Coal, oil or natural gas must first be mined or extracted, and then the materials must be refined and processed in another emissions-intensive process. In some cases, other compounds, such as formaldehyde, must be produced, causing even more pollution.
The petrochemicals are then cracked into plastic building blocks such as ethylene, which is the largest emissions-producing aspect of plastics production. Additional emissions come from the polymerization process, which combines these building blocks into larger molecules and then shapes them into products, the report said.
To estimate the total emissions associated with plastic production, the authors studied the greenhouse gas impacts of the nine most common types of plastic used to make plastic packaging, water bottles, hot beverage containers and other materials.
In 2019, plastic products produced 2.24 billion tons of earth-heating pollution, equivalent to 600 coal-fired power plants. That year, it accounted for 5% of total global carbon emissions, 12% of global oil demand and 8.5% of natural gas demand, the report found.
These figures are expected to increase significantly as the plastics industry is on an exponential growth trajectory, with production expected to double or even triple by 2050, the report said.
If production increases by 4% per year, doubling within a quarter of a century, emissions contributing to global warming could reach 6.78 gigatonnes by 2050, equivalent to the emissions from more than 1,700 coal-fired power plants.
Complete decarbonization of the grid, a focus of global climate plans, could limit this climate impact but would still set the world on a dangerous path. The authors write that as much as 70% of the fossil fuels used in plastic manufacturing come from the raw materials used in production, rather than the electricity used in processing.
Therefore, even if the world achieves completely carbon-free electricity by 2050, plastic production will produce 5.13 billion tons of pollution by 2050, assuming an annual growth rate of 4%.
Stopping this explosive growth can reduce the impact. But even if production remains steady, it will account for 15% to 19% of the remaining global carbon budget by 2050 to keep average global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius, the report found.
Even if the grid is fully decarbonized, this proportion could still be as high as 16%.
The report was released ahead of next week’s meeting of the fourth Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC4) on the global plastics treaty in Ottawa, Canada.
Neil Tangri, science and policy director at the environmental justice group Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, who reviewed the report, said the findings clearly show that plastic production is a wrecking ball for our climate , which he hopes will influence upcoming negotiations.
He said the report provided negotiators with the strongest scientific evidence yet on the need to halt and reverse the expansion of plastics production.
In a brief analysis to be published soon, the Tangris group found that estimates suggest plastic production could completely consume the world’s carbon budget before the end of the century. But they also say limiting plastic production could bring huge climate benefits, Tangli said.
He said that if, according to our calculations, the treaty forces companies to drastically cut plastic production by at least 12% per year, we can still maintain the world’s 1.5 degree goal and curb the impact of plastic on the climate.
Limiting plastic production could have other positive knock-on effects, the authors write. Including public health aspects.
Tony said in an emailed statement that petrochemicals used as the raw material for plastic have poisoned communities near production facilities with cancer-causing pollution. The consequences of the industry’s unchecked carbon emissions will affect everyone on the planet.
If plastic is burned in incinerators or sent to landfills, it can also produce toxic emissions and emissions that heat the planet at the end of its useful life.
作者寫道，儘管造成了巨大的氣候損失，但目前根據該條約削減塑膠污染的提議尚未包括任何對氣候影響的明確考慮，該條約被稱為自2015 年《巴黎氣候協議》以來最重要的環境protocol.
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