UNEA-5.2: Some Key Outcomes on Nature and Plastics

In this episode of About Sustainability…, Simon and Erin followed up with Andre and IGES colleague Amila Abeynayaka, an expert on plastics management, on some of the recent outcomes from UNEA-5.2, the second part of the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA).

At this year’s UNEA, governments managed to find consensus on 14 decisions and resolutions, and we discussed a couple of these, namely on nature-based solutions (NBS) and on plastics. 

First, we discussed the decision on nature-based solutions. We heard Andre’s insights on the concept, where it comes from, what it means and why it may have been difficult to agree on. 

Then, Amila discussed with us the much-awaited resolution on ending plastic pollution, which was another important outcome of UNEA 5.2. Apart from the details of the resolution, we also talked about why we are getting such a resolution now, its focus and why it is difficult to get away from plastics entirely. 

Throughout our conversation, we discovered that all these issues are interlinked in interesting ways.

Helpful resources:

• Episode 1: “What is UNEA-5.2?”
• IGES’ UNEA-5.2 Special Webpage

About our guest:

Amila Abeynayaka is a Policy Researcher in the IGES Centre Collaborating with UNEP on Environmental Technologies (CCET) and part of the Sustainable Consumption and Production team at IGES. 

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.