 A very good morning in New York and that part of the world. Afternoon or evening, depending of course on your time zone. My name is Dominique Bergen, I'm the director of the FAO office in Geneva, and I'm really delighted to welcome you to this second FAO briefing on plastics used in agriculture, organized with our dear colleagues from the FAO liaison office in New York, as well as from the Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment in the FAO headquarters in Rome. We of course warmly welcome permanent missions, international organization and other actors participating in person from Geneva, New York, as well as virtually from all over the world. The main objective of this briefing today is to discuss the outcomes of the second session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastics Pollution, known also as INC2. Second, to inform on the zero draft of the treaty and its implications for the agriculture sector. And third, to explore concrete solutions to address plastics use and waste in agriculture through country examples and best practices. Before starting, can allow me to share some details regarding the logistics and housekeeping for this hybrid discussion. This webinar will be in English only with no interpretation. It will be recorded and will later be available on our websites, along with the various related resources relevant to this session. It is scheduled to last for about one hour and a half. Since we would like to make this webinar as interactive as possible, we have allocated time for a 20 minute Q&A session during which the floor will open for an open exchange. We kindly ask the persons participating virtually to write their questions in the Q&A, not in the chat, including your name and organization. We'll get to as many questions as we can. Post colleagues in the room, please go in the classical way by raising your nameplate or your hand and we'll give you the floor. So that's all for the housekeeping. And I would like to really begin by briefly introducing our distinguished speakers today. We will have quite a number of them. And we will have Mr. Jamil Ahmad, the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs at the United Nations Environment Programme in New York. But if sitting with the colleagues in New York. Then we have sitting with me, Ms. Janique Grattrout, Deputy Permanent Representative of Norway to the UN here in Geneva. We have Ms. Anama Solofa, Lead Negotiator, Ocean Alliance of Small Island States. We have also Ms. Marinella Mauti, Sustainability Leader at INPEF Brazil. Ms. Karuna Rana, Co-Founder of the SITS Youth Ames Hub. And Ms. Santia Anant, Representative of the Chairman and Youth Major Group to the United Nations Environment Programme. We will also hear from a few FAO colleagues. And we'll be starting with Mr. Juanjo Chou, Director of the FAO liaison office with the UN in New York. We'll have also Ms. Néretine, Environment Workstream Lead from the FAO Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment. And Ms. Alicia Pepezac, Forestry Officer at the FAO, UN Economic Commission for Europe, UNEC, Forestry and Timber Section. Welcome you all. And without further ado, I would like now to give the floor to my colleague, Mr. Juanjo Chou, who delivered the opening remarks. Juanjo, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you, Dominic. Dear colleagues and esteemed guests. First of all, I would like to thank you for joining us here in New York. I'm pleased to be sitting next to my dear colleague, Ambassador, Director Jamil Mahamat from the United Nations Environment Programme, a co-partner and a leader on the plastic agenda. My name is also from Ms. Amanda Salafi, the Lead Negotiator on Ocean from the Mission of Samoa to the United Nations in New York. I'm so grateful for the many esteemed speakers and attendees joining us in person from Geneva as well as online from around the globe. Plastic play a crucial role in the agriculture sector with an annual consumption of 12.5 million tons using crops, livestock production, forestry, fisheries, and aquaculture. These plastic products offer many advantages such as increased crop yield, enhanced efficiency, and reduced food loss and waste. However, they also come with the downside when discarded in the environment environment that plastic generated plastic and micro plastic pollution, which is a progressively health and threats to food security and food safety as well as human and environmental health. Solutions to plastic pollution in agri-food managing needs to be cross-sectoral inclusive based upon principles of circularity and the integral part of the overall transformation of agri-food systems to be more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable. Two weeks ago, world leaders met in New York for the Sustainable Development Goals Summit and adopted a declaration which underlies the interlinked challenges where facing and the need to address the economic, social, environmental dimensions of sustainable development in an integrated manner. A key message from the summit is that we need to produce more food for a growing population and that we need to reduce poverty and malnutrition but that we must do so in a more sustainable way. Reducing the impact on our planet. The declaration speaks about the need to support global efforts to address plastic pollution and the work of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legal-binding instrument on plastic pollution, including the marine environment by 2024. Our briefing today will therefore discuss the role of plastic used in agri-culture ahead of the upcoming third meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee in Nairobi this November. Follow the participants as an observer to these negotiations to ensure that crucial topics of agri-culture, food safety, and food security are included in the discussion surrounding the new legally binding agreement on plastic pollution. This highlights a false commitment to addressing the critical issues surrounding plastic pollution and its impact on global food systems and the environment. I look forward to hearing more from our distinguished speakers and experts about what the human system, human member states, and other stakeholders, including youth, are doing to address the issue. And then the updates on the next steps in the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee process. Thank you again for joining us. We're looking forward to a productive discussion for today. Thank you back to Dominique. Thank you very much indeed for setting the scene and for your introductory remarks on the role of the agri-culture sector in addressing the issue of plastic. Thank you again. We're now here from Mr. Jamil Ahmad from UNEP New York. We'll be setting the scene and discussing the role of the UN system in fighting plastic pollution more broadly. Mr. Ahmad, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, the colleagues. A very good morning and afternoon to all of you from a sunny New York after weeks of playing. I would like to thank my colleague Manju and FAO for posting this briefing today for discussing the plastic pollution issues and also the INC. And also the food safety for security aspects of the new agreement. UNEP, as we all know, is leading the INC in a sense of hosting the secretariat and also the input from UN agencies. Our world is caught in a troubling cycle of plastic production, consumption and waste. Research shows that humanity produces around 430 million metric tons of plastic annually. Without decisive action, it is forecasted that this will triple by 2040. Most of the plastics we produce go to waste. Over the past seven decades, 75% of plastics produced were thrown away. Only 9% of all plastic was recycled and just 17% was incinerated. Yet the clock is ticking. July last 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded. This year is on its way to be recorded as one of the hottest years also. In Antarctica, sea ice is just, has hit extreme low. The plastic crisis or the plastic pollution crisis to be exact is exacerbating climate change and biodiversity issues and crisis as well. Microplastics are affecting many species who are ingesting these, especially in seas and oceans. Coral reefs are deteriorating seabeds and transforming these ecosystems into ecosystems in bad way, affecting the food chains and marine life that depend on them. Let me give you a quick overview of the UN work. The report of the United Nations Environment Management Group maps the work of UN on plastic pollution. It shows that the UN's multifaceted engagement is going on. The mapping detected that a total of 194 plastic-related activities are ongoing including projects and initiatives from 23 UN entities covering as many as 167 countries. While this is not a comprehensive overview of the UN projects on pollution, it represents a significant sample. UNEP's own report turning off the tap provides a campus for governments and an action plan for businesses to end plastic pollution by 2040. Life cycle approach is vital to ensure that efforts are focused not only just on managing waste, but also on examining how products are designed, produced and distributed. The negotiation of the internationally-illegally binding instrument on plastic pollution presents an opportunity for stronger global cooperation to effectively address the plastic pollution. Two sessions of the INC have already been held and let me not go into the detail. The second session was important in the sense that it has now produced a zero draft, which will be discussed in the third INC in November in our UNEP headquarters in Nairobi. The first part of the zero draft covers the objectives of the instruments and leaves placeholders for elements that members may wish to include but were not discussed at INC. Written submissions on elements not discussed at INC too were also invited. The secretariat will prepare a synthesis report of the submissions for consideration at the preparatory one-day meeting and at INC three. The synthesis report will be released this month. The second part of the text of the draft zero draft discusses the elements which are broadly structured around life cycle of plastics and plastic products with the aim of addressing plastic pollution. Consistent with paragraph 3B of the UNEA resolution which established this negotiating committee, the options in part 2 aim to collectively promote sustainable production with consumption of plastics through, among other things, product design and momentary sound waste management. Part 3 and 4 outline different options of measures aimed at collectively addressing the implication of the instrument and part 5 and 6 are placeholders for institutional arrangements and further provisions. I want to emphasize that coordination and cooperation are recognized as key elements in the future instrument. United Nations Environment Assembly resolutions have all affirmed the urgent need to strengthen global coordination, cooperation and governance to take immediate action towards the long-term elimination of plastic pollution in marine and other environments and to avoid the detriment from plastic pollution to ecosystems and human activities dependent on them. In closing, I want to stress that the responsibility to combat plastic pollution lies with all of us. It's a collective duty and we must act swiftly and decisively to protect our planet and future generations from the impacts of plastic pollution. Thank you. Thank you indeed, Mr Ahmad, for your presentation, for reminding us of the magnitude of the problem and 75% of the plastic produced are thrown away, only 9% are recycled. Also highlighting the importance of life cycle type of performance, touching on the negotiation and the opportunity it represents and providing an update on the status of the current draft instrument being discussed and reminding us in concluding of the important for collective decisive action. This is what it's all about. So again, thank you very much, Mr Ahmad, and I assume you will be staying there in case there are questions in the course of the Q&A session. Our next speaker is sitting next to me, and his name is Janique Gratrud, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Norway to the United Nations here in Geneva who will present the perspective of Norway with the co-chair of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution on the Plastic Institute. So the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, and thank you so very much for inviting Norway to this important and very timely briefing. Now as some of you may know, and as you mentioned, Norway and Rwanda launched the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution by 2040 last year, and since then many countries including the G7 countries have voiced their support for this deadline. But this ambition also raises some very key questions. How do we end plastic pollution by 2040? What scale of action is needed and how much will it cost? Now these are some questions that prompted the Nordic Council of Ministers to commission the report towards ending plastic pollution by 2040. The report presents two scenarios for how the plastic system could develop by 2040. The first one shows that inaction could increase virgin plastic production by two thirds, nearly double annual mismanaged plastics, and increase greenhouse gas emissions by 63% by 2040 relative to 2019 levels. The more ambitious scenario that the report talks about is with a plastic treaty with global rules through the life cycle, it could cut annual mismanaged plastic by 90% and virgin plastic production by 30% by 2040. Now this would take us a long way towards ending plastic pollution by 2040, but it doesn't take us all the way. So the report is also very clear that we need additional measures. Now agricultural plastics as a critical source of mismanaged plastic pose high potential risk of dispersion and contamination in soil. Agricultural plastics are also often burned in the open, which releases contaminants such as persistent organic pollutants into the air. Now the report found that under the global rules scenario, recycling of agricultural plastics could increase from 1% in 2019 to 39% in 2040. So I would just encourage everyone here and listening to read the report and to further contribute with science and knowledge to that. Now just to add that my country Norway has also called for sexual programs of work to develop science-based strategies to address plastic pollution, including in agriculture. Now these sectoral programs of work should make recommendations to the parties, such as on policies, on targets and on other actions that is suggested, identify any research and development needs and to cooperate with the multi-stakeholder action agenda to be initiated by the treaty. So it's now 18 months since the UN Environment Assembly adopted the decision to start the plastic treaty negotiations and we're already nine months into the work of the INC, which means we only have 15 months left. We have to advance our upcoming discussions in Nairobi and start relevant intersectional work to inform the INC to meet this deadline. That's why also I very much appreciate this initiative and I look forward to the briefing and discussions and what an effective global plastic treaty could look like to end plastic pollution, including ending plastic pollution from agriculture. Thank you. Thank you indeed very much. Miss Gratrud for your intervention and for highlighting the work undertaken in the context of the I Ambition Coalition. I think it would be good perhaps to share the report as part of the resources that will make available at the end of this meeting. Happy to do so. Yeah, I guess so. I knew it was a non-conferential type of recommendation, but we will certainly circulate that so that everybody can see. Thank you also for highlighting the importance of science and knowledge and referring to the sectoral programme of work that is ongoing and linking to the point of Mr. Ahmad. It's time to act decisively, considering that at the end we have only 15 months left to complete the work. Again, thank you very much and we look forward to the report. I would now like to give the floor to Mr. Lef Nerektin from the FAO Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment. We present FAO's work at INC2, the outcomes of the negotiation and the implication on agriculture as well as the preparation of INC3. Lef, great to see you and over to you. Thank you very much Dominic, good morning, good afternoon and sincere thanks to all participants and distinguished speakers. And again, thank you for this inspiring welcome and remarks and also special thanks to FAO liaison officers in Geneva, New York for organising this important event. Yes, I think I just, my apology, I think it's, yes, my apology for, I think you can see now the second slide. Over the last 70 years, the use of plastics in agri-food systems has become pervasive, low cost and adaptable. Plastic products are now present in almost every part of our food systems from fishing gear to tree guards to greenhouses. While they increase the productivity and efficiency in all agricultural sectors and help minimize food loss and waste, also increase productivity, at the same time, they're also a major source of pollution, primarily environmental pollution, and only now we are recognizing increasing risks to food safety. Their long-term use and lack of systematic collection, as we just heard during welcoming remarks, leads to plastic accumulation in soils and aquatic environments, humans and ecosystems. In 2021, FAO published a global assessment report which called for action on plastics in agriculture, which identified that over 12 million metric tons of plastics are used annually in various agricultural sub-sectors. And just for comparison, this number is almost the same number of the plastics which enter the ocean on an annual basis. The majority of 80% of plastic products are used in crops and livestock production, but also important to mention fisheries and aquaculture, and the list of plastics is used in forestry sector. In our report, we analyzed different plastic products, and I think especially this slide shows mostly a situation with plastic products in the terrestrial agriculture, and we avoid able to identify specific plastic products which require priority attention and assign a certain risk categories. And especially I would like to mention that these categories belong polymer-coated fertilizers, mulching films, which is the major category of plastics used almost in all regions worldwide, pesticide containers, and so on. Potential alternatives and interventions exist in many instances, not in all, but to better balance the benefits and trade-offs of plastics. And for this reason, our report and continuous the messaging we are bringing to various fora from AFRU is the importance of using six-size approach from refusal, which means minimizing use of plastics up to least preferred option recover than all other alternatives have been exhausted. I would like to mention, for example, in agriculture, there are very diverse ways of managing plastics. For example, instead of using plastic mulch in some applications, but not in all, we can use cover crops to replace those mulching films. For example, we can use biodegradable products instead of plastic ones, for example, for seedling pots. Also, I would like to mention, we're here today during this meeting, the importance of extended producer responsibility, mandatory, voluntary schemes, which are very important for collection and recycling of non-biodegradable plastic products, particularly pesticide containers. I think also today we will pay attention to fisheries and agriculture sector, which receive a special attention in the zero draft of the plastic treaty, where plastic materials which are being used in the sector could be hazardous or problematic, especially when they get lost, abandoned or discarded at sea. For that reason, we are using a particular terminology, abandoned, lost, otherwise discarded fishing gear, which causes significant impacts, not only in the marine environment, but very important in the marine biodiversity with over 600 species of marine life impacted, and obviously with important consequences for food security, livelihoods, safety, and environmental pollution. For this reason, FAO Council, as one of our major governing bodies, in December last year, took into account conclusions and observations in the report, we presented and made the decision which consists in three major parts. The first one, FAO has been encouraged by our membership to continue undertaking further scientific assessments to feel important knowledge gaps related to distribution and various other aspects of plastic use in agriculture. The Council also underscored the importance of multi-stakeholder cooperation, again, very prominently reflected in the intergovernmental negotiating committee and discussions of the plastic treaty. And important, we receive a mandate to develop a Voluntary Code of Conduct on the Sustainable Use of Plastics in Agriculture. And finally, membership at Carriage, the FAO, to support intergovernmental negotiating committee negotiations on plastic treaty. We are currently in the middle of, in the development of Voluntary Code of Conduct, and here just present the timeline. We have completed, we briefed our members in Rome. Meet this year, we conducted global expert meeting, we already conducted three regional consultations in Asia Pacific, in Northern America, and Latin America and the Caribbean. And we will continue conducting those multi-stakeholder consultation until the end of the year. We also, in order to increase participation of various stakeholders in the process of developing Voluntary Code of Conduct, we currently have online consultations posted on the Food Security Nutrition Forum. And I'm asking my colleagues to share the link in Q&A that, and we really encourage you to please share it with your constituencies. We are looking very much for your inputs. The draft we're expecting to deliver to our governing bodies until the end of the year. And as you could see, this goes almost in parallel in a complementary way with the ongoing negotiations and ongoing discussions in the INC. We have the FAO delegation actively participated, provided inputs during the first meetings, and we're also planning to be in Nairobi in November this year to support our membership at the third session. We participate as an observer, supporting our members and advocating for the treaty that recognizes the critical role of agri-food systems in sustainable management of plastics and as an important sector to, as an important sector to end plastic pollution to the environment. Our position did not change much since we joined these negotiations, and I think these four major points for us remain critical and important. First, as already mentioned, we are bringing to the table the importance of balancing benefits and trade-offs in sustainable use of plastics in the sector. This is probably one of the most diverse and complex economic activity sectors involving providing important livelihoods and food security and nutrition to the global population. Therefore, this particular aspect is very important and also obviously to reflect on the perspectives of those different stakeholders alone agri-food value chains, especially smallholder firms. Similarly to the overall overarching framework, as again we heard in the well-community remarks, we advocate for the holistic circular and evidence-based approach which is equally applied to agri-food systems to plastic management and agriculture. We believe the specificity of plastic use in this particular sector may require approaching them in the context of sectoral approach in the future treaty, and we are continuing discussing this issue with the membership. Finally, we emphasize the importance of referring to the existing FAO guidelines and normative instruments which have been developed particularly in the marine domain, in the fisheries and aquaculture sector, especially the environmental guidelines on fishing gear that should complement existing provisions under the instrument. I'm almost to the finish, we are still carefully analyzing the zero draft, but I believe so this five major points, we are very pleased to see many inputs and many perspectives which we have been bringing to this negotiations reflected in the zero draft, especially very strong messages on sector-specific approaches which come in different draft articles of the future treaty. We emphasize the importance and recognition of the complementarity and coordination with existing instruments. For example, we noticed that abandoned loss and discarded fishing gear is specifically reflected in the waste management articles and includes agriculture-related provisions for problematic and avoidable plastic products as well as intentionally released microplastics. Agricultural sector is mentioned as a sector with respect to specific circularity criteria and also guidance to be developed. Finally, I would like to mention that while the primary plastic polymers and chemicals and polymers of concern are outside of FAO mandate, we see very strong messages coming in the zero draft which certainly will be beneficial for agricultural sector and especially if adopted, many of these provisions will result in the reduced inputs of those harmful chemicals and plastic polymers where agriculture is a user of those materials. And I think with that, thank you so much for your attention. We are looking forward to your questions and productive discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Pretty much left for your presentation which I will not attempt to summarize because I thought we are running a little bit behind, but thank you also for highlighting the work FAO is doing mandated by our governing bodies including the voluntary code of conduct on sustainable use of plastics in agriculture, certainly very important and for reminding us also that FAO is actually participating as an observer in the INC negotiations and is there basically to support our members. So I think it's important to know that and for the delegations of the countries participating here to be aware that they can count on FAO support of course when it comes to discussions related to our areas of mandate. But thank you very much indeed left. And just to mention to the speakers that there are a number of questions that are already coming up in the Q&A. So you may want to start responding to that. And I would now like to invite our colleague Alicia from the FAO UNEC forestry and timber section to present the role of bio economy and circular economy to address plastic pollution. Alicia, welcome to the floor. Thank you very much. Thank you Dominique and good morning and good afternoon to everybody. We're also happy to be part of this important discussion. And I will talk about the role of bio economy and circular economy to address plastic pollution and agriculture. And you will see that in my presentation I will reiterate some of the information that was already mentioned by colleagues from UNEP and from Norway and also from colleague from FAO. I also want to mention that I work for the UNEC and FAO forestry and timber section and in our work we cover data, monitoring and assessment, policy and dialogue and advice, communication and outreach and capacity. And as you can see the plastics are present everywhere and agriculture is not an exception. You can see plastics in obvious applications and in some they're not so obvious as mentioned by left also in fertilizers that stay in the soil and then become micro plastics. So we have in front of us a big problem. In 2019 agriculture value chains used more than 12 million tons of plastic products and plant and animal production and also over 37 million tons in food packaging. And as said before only a fraction has been collected and recycled most are buried today on landfill. And we talk a lot about the pollution in the oceans but it's important to know that soils contain larger quantities of micro plastics than oceans. That leads to erosion, reduced water infiltration and decreased microbial activity resulting in negative impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity. In particular these single use plastics have impacts which threaten soil condition and water quality. Degrading into micro plastics they can accumulate in food chains and threaten food security, food safety and ultimately also human health. So it's a problem that we are all responsible. Bioeconomy and circular economy can provide solutions in the form of bio-based materials which offer promising alternatives to the decrease or elimination of use of plastics and that's also mentioned by lab. Melching films are a persistent problem and also seedling trays and pots, tree guards. It's a few examples when they can be replaced by bio-based solutions and also on the photos you can see how melching films behave. At the beginning you can see how the plantation looks like, how they degrade on the ground and also the amount of pollution they create. In circular economy we are also talking about the circular use of different containers, plastic containers, also big bags that contain plastic and also about increased collection and recycling. In urban environments this problem of collection of plastics and sorting and recycling has much more attention but in agriculture we are still having the problem as mentioned at the very beginning in the presentation by Pauli from UNEP this problem is not tackled in agriculture enough. Also nature-based solutions provide alternative to the use of plastics in agriculture and an example also can be cover crops and plant-raised juice as an alternative to these melching films. Besides the same functions as melching films in addition create the benefits of absorbing rain and retaining soil moisture. They also increase soil health and microbial activity. They retain soil from erosion and suppress wheat growth and provide habitat for pollinators. They also sequester carbon. Bioplastics are based on plants, algae, fungi and bacteria and they are also alternative in situations where we cannot use, we cannot eliminate plastics. They are fully or partially made from biodegradable and biological resources, are less toxic and have a lower environmental and carbon footprint and they can be used in situations where plastics cannot be avoided or cannot be replaced with reusable or more durable materials or cannot be easily retried. We can use that. Examples of these alternatives include bamboo, coconut shells, paper and also cardboard, biomass and many, many others. Innovation is really growing. It is happening in the private sector. It's also one element that needs to be connected to these negotiations maybe. We are not talking about the problem but also what could be the solution. And as the demand for agricultural plastics continues to grow promoting circular bio-economy approaches is essential to reduce plastic waste through prevention and reduction, reuse and recycling and I can only highlight these approaches. Also tackling agricultural plastics pollution through a circular bio-economy is a vital measure in helping to deliver the objectives of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and it's also embedded in the FAO Strategic Framework and in particular the program priority on bio-economy for sustainable food and agriculture which is closely linked to SDG 12 which includes responsible consumption and production but also waste disposal is an integrated element. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed. Alicia for clearly highlighting how bio-economy and circular economy can help to identify alternatives to plastic and sharing solutions to address plastic pollution in agriculture. So again, thank you very much. Our next speaker is Miss Anama Solofa who will be speaking on the Friends of Action Agenda launched by Samoa in the US at INC2. Miss Solofa, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you so much and good afternoon. Good morning. It's great to be here and this morning you have two of us from the permanent mission of Samoa. With me is my colleague Bryce Rudick who is the legal advisor with the mission, based at the mission at the moment and we're here to speak about, as you mentioned, the Friends of the Action Agenda or Friends of the Plastic Pollution and Action Agenda to provide a quick update. I'll just, in the interest of time I'll just give a quick background and Bryce will speak more to some of the sectoral work that is outlined in the Action Agenda intentions. So Samoa in the United States initiated the Friends of the Action Agenda to have informal discussions on potential approaches for enhanced stakeholder engagement in connection with the negotiation and future implementation of the Plastic Pollution Treaty which is currently being negotiated in line with the mandate set up at UNEA 5 under resolution 514. The meeting of the Friends of the Action Agenda took place in Paris during INC2 and this was followed up recently a little over a week ago here in New York by a second meeting of the Friends of the Action Agenda and during this meeting a number of questions posed to stakeholders who attended the meeting to provide an update on what was happening what key actions were happening in the differences and what actions they're taking to combat Plastic Pollution what role and what the role of such actions would be in the global goal of ending Plastic Pollutions and how actions can be incentivized through future international the future international instruments Action Agenda. At the end of the meeting two weeks ago a call to action was then made to those who were in attendance calling on stakeholders to enhance the efforts to achieve the global goal towards ending Plastic Pollution by 2040 looking to organize themselves into relevant sectors providing or preparing a stake or the Action Report developing sectoral Plastic Pollution reduction pathways toward ending Plastic Pollution by 2040 and contributing to the and to contribute to the INC process and perhaps we'll speak a little bit more to that. Thank you so in creating the Friends of the Action Agenda Simone in the United States we're really focused on two objectives. So first is increasing ambition in the negotiation of the instrument itself. We know that this is a problem that will require really all sectors to be involved and if they can demonstrate to this process that action is happening and greater action can happen then we feel that we can actually negotiate a more ambitious agreement. Second that we need to enhance near-term action. There is already as we have heard tremendous amounts of plastic that is flowing into the environment and then into the marine environment and we cannot wait for an agreement to be negotiated and implemented before we start to take action. So enhancing ambition in the negotiation and then enhancing action in the near term. In order to do this we think that we really need to focus not the sectoral level. These are the actors that best know how to reduce plastic use, plastic production and use and waste in their own sectors. And so as Anima said we are focused at the sectoral level and focused on a whole number of sectors. We actually have 13 packaging, fishing, municipalities, health construction, petrochemicals, tourism, agriculture, fashion a whole number of sectors and really in the near term we need them to do two things. First produce what we are calling a stakeholder action report which tells us about the action that is already happening in the sector. If we know what is happening we can then build on that. And then second to create pathways. We have set a goal of zero plastic pollution by 2040. And we now need sectoral pathways to tell us how we get from where we are now to where we need to be in 2040. And we think this is best done by the sectors themselves. Again they know how to make this transition. And we think it is critically important in these pathways to have interim targets. If we just set one target in 2040 of zero plastic pollution we won't know until we are very far along from meeting that. So interim targets in 2030 and 2035. We will have an event on the Saturday or Sunday before INC3 that will bring together a number of these sectors and of course FAO and the agriculture sector will be invited and hopefully be there. Okay. Thank you very much indeed Ms. Solofa for sharing the idea of the initiative of Samoa in the context of the French of the friends of action. And indeed Mr. Bryce Houdic we think is your name for also providing additional information including on the importance of enhancing ambition and enhancing action. Also and for the comment also on the event that you organized before INC3 would be good if we could add that to the material that we will be sharing with participants so that people are indeed well aware. So thank you very much for that and our next speaker is Ms. Milaine Ilamotti who will be presenting the case study of INPEF a Brazilian organization responsible for managing the collection and disposal of pesticides container Ms. Ilamotti the floor is yours. Thank you so much for giving me this time to share the experience in Brazil, you know you see those lights or yeah, now it is. Yes, everyone. Yeah. What is the Campolimpa what we call the Campolimpa system is the reverse the Brazilian reverse logistics program and we have 50 packages for crop protection using crop protection and also the ones who are left over so the ones that are the grower do not use all the products we also receive and recycle and INPEF the entity that I represent is responsible for managing all the system. So the system is actually a multi-stakeholder we have companies who are the ones who put the packaging in the field and also all the entities from growers association, farmers distribution dealers and all different sectors from the government also how that works I think we like a lot to say the four foundations are based on our success so the legal basis we have a strong law of enforcement and understanding that everybody has your own responsibility in this system the integration it is a collective as I listened several times during the explanations and collaborative system where everybody has your own responsibility education we put a lot of resources in education and awareness and also we have look at the process of technology so everybody all the value chain in agriculture is present so from the farmers, from the industry from the public power and also the distribution channels how that work so the manufacturer is actually the one who produce and put the packages into the environment goes to a distribution channel the farmers people use and he has the most important element in this system because he is responsible to triple rinse and take the packages to a receiving station also we have collections around the country as you know Brazil is a big country and we have several different farmers from big farmers to small farmers so they all included in the system or in the end is what we do with this plastic so we can say that 100% of all the plastic is recyclable so even though having anything from plastic, flexible, big bags everything is recycle and the highlights of the system is the circular economy so the collected drums and packaging produce new packages how we do that using different partners around the country and also the parts that we cannot recycle will be going to incineration I also listen to several of my previous colleagues saying in the beginning people will be burning the containers and also that was the case in Brazil 20 years ago so today we don't have that anymore we don't have this condition anymore everything goes to a recycle plants and becomes a new container or a new cap also important to mention it is from the numbers it was presented before is still not that big but we have contributed to 700,000 tons of empty packages this is a lot of packages in the last 20 years the most important contribution it was what we avoided in terms of CO2 so it's almost a million tons of CO2 that was avoided or it was not admitted to the environment and also the amount of energy that we were able to avoid or to use because of the recycle plants and the recycle use of the containers I mentioned before one of our foundation is education so we are very happy to say that we have this program for 12 years it already impact over 2.3 million students around Brazil and it is 4 kids from 10 and 11 years old and we've been recognized in the past for the UN as a program that disseminated the sustainable development goals mainly the goal number 4 and 12 we would like to invite you all to come to Brazil and see all this case that we are presenting here very briefly we also have put everything in the museum where is an educational center for people who experience the circular economy and also I want to thank you for the time and attention and invite you to visit us on our media, social media and site I do have a film, a video to show if I still have the time not sure go ahead how long does it last it is 3 minutes okay let's go for it can you please show your film because we can't see you cannot listen no we can't see anything it seems you will have share again yeah, probably share again the material and we will for sure share it with participants but thank you very much I think for this presentation of the case study in Brazil and being concrete I think what is nice in this presentation is that we have seen the magnitude of the problem that are being made at the negotiation level in the context of INC the INC process and then we have a very concrete example of something that is being done and I like what you have been presenting in terms of the avoided emission and that's all I think I find it very very telling so thank you very much Miss Ilamonte for that we will hear from Miss Carona Rana who is the co-founder of the City of Ames Hub who will be talking about life cycle approaches to tackling plastic pollution including natural based solutions and why this is especially important for cities, small island developing states Miss Rana, the floor is yours thank you and hello everyone thank you for giving me the opportunity to share a bit about the Mauritius context which is a big ocean state and I hope to bring in an underground perspective of what I have been seen and working with now before I delve into why life cycle approach is important I think it's important to give a quick background about Mauritius as I mentioned Mauritius is a big ocean state and like other big ocean states fisheries and agriculture are important in terms of our food systems but very often we just tend to focus on that and on the marine pollution side of things and less on what's happening within terrestrial agriculture and I think the FAO speaker before me put out some very concrete evidence and data about how there may be a lot more microplastics in the soil and what can be done to what are we doing but also what more can be done to tackle plastics within agriculture so this is particularly important for small island developing states or big ocean states as we like to call it because a lot of the big ocean states are majorly reliant on food imports right now and I think it's important to give a quick background about how reliant on food imports right now to only 30% of our food is coming from inland 70% is imported but as we are aiming to increase food production on land and thus food security we will be having more agricultural systems put in place and this is why it's particularly important for small island states to think about the sustainability of it so just to give some data Mauritius has only one sanitary landfill again very similar to the other big ocean states so almost all the waste is sent to the landfill and especially plastic waste because recycling is not really big on the island and I wanted to now touch upon a 2021 study that was done on microplastics in agricultural soil wastewater effluence wastewater sludge and heavy amount of microplastics was found in all three places and most than 50% of the microplastics that was identified was polypropylene followed by polyethylene and polyamide this is for agricultural soil and this actually indicated that most of the plastics are coming from the likes of plastic nets packaging and bags used in agriculture and a lot of it could be intentional or unintentional by farmers a high amount of actually a higher amount of microplastics was found in wastewater effluent and sewage sludge keeping in mind that in Mauritius over 10% of treated effluent is used for irrigation and the rest is discharged in underground water surface water and the ocean sewage sludge all of it is sent to a landfill so as you can see eventually they will find a way to enter food system affecting obviously the ecosystem but also human health so these results clearly indicate we need better alternatives to plastic use in Mauritius especially the agricultural sector because right now that's not on the radar and as such the work that we have been doing has been focused on three things so firstly we have been partnering with an agricultural startup called Everbloom whereby they train small scale local farmers on sustainable agricultural practices but this has not included the use of plastics because as I mentioned that is not really on the radar of small scale local farmers who continue to use plastic in the way it is traditionally used and they're not aware of the impacts of it so we are including that in the training that we give them to do with sustainable agricultural practices which brings me to the second point which is alternatives obviously we need better alternatives and again the FAO speaker previously mentioned about biomaterials and nature based solutions but unfortunately and this is a work I had done for plastic straws unfortunately right now there is not much standard or equal labeling available for the different alternatives that exist to plastic in Mauritius especially so for example I had done a study on plastic straws that showed that a lot of the alternatives for example PLA or some of it that was sugarcane based were not entirely biodegradable and could have similar impact could stay in the environment for as long as plastic on the other hand there were materials that had a higher carbon footprint than plastics themselves sometimes three times higher and thus requiring even more energy to produce so as you can see you know we don't want to contribute to climate change while trying to solve one problem so it's very important for us I mean obviously there will be trade-offs but it's very important at least to set up some kind of standard and certification in place to ensure that we are not moving forward with false solutions and this also is linked to a high cost of certifications that could come with it especially for innovators and small companies that may be producing these alternatives thirdly when it comes to nature based solutions seaweed could be very big for small island developing states as it comes from the ocean and there are so many examples of seaweed being very good alternative to plastic as a nature based solution but again as I mentioned you know this is not really in the radar a lot of the innovators and startups working on nature based solution and alternative to plastics focusing on consumer products they're focusing on the likes of straws on the likes of cutlery bags but not much is being focused on what is being used in agriculture so I think we also need to look into what incentives we could provide to these startups and innovators for them also to look into products that could be used in the agricultural sector and cost will be one of the barriers so yeah so that's a bit about the perspective from Mauritius and the work we're doing and I'm happy to talk more thank you thank you very much Miss Hanna for sharing your perspective from Mauritius and highlighting the situation and the issue faced by the small island developing state and beyond that also the issue of micro plastic and the alternative that exists in it so thank you very much for that and it is now my pleasure to turn to Miss Anant who is a representative of the Turing and new major group to the United Nations Environment Program to discuss the issues of plastics used in agriculture in India and the important role youth has to play in the INC so Miss Anant welcome and the floor is yours thank you so I'm currently based in Sri Lanka so the Asia Pacific environmental authorities and the ministerial forum is happening and plastics has been one of the main agendas in this forum and so I guess this is a connected space to be also talking about it on the politics Indian scenario and in the international plastics one of the breakthroughs entry points that we see right now in the international sustainable agriculture that is coming which is also looking at soil fertility and health of the soil which is also again connecting back to what's happening with micro plastics in the soil and the agave plastic that is being used so that's sort of the one point I see is a coming process of what we could see in the next something the other is in the context of the EPR regulations that have also come into play which is as of 2021 effective although they do not directly address agricultural plastics they are broader in terms of addressing plastics from all sectors that is all coming into play which currently as of now the implementation has not started in full term it is being implemented in sort of year by year based and we have around eight years to go for 80% of plastic recycling that is being manufactured or being imported to the country as well so that's the context of what's happening in addressing agriculture plastics in India there's also the issues with let's say one of the examples is I could go on more in detail in the context of plastic mulching which is also increasingly seeing increase in trends of usage that is also being there and it's also connected with the fact that one of the missions that the government is sort of trying is to doubling farmers income and so the plastic mulching has been merged into that as well but what's also happening on ground is for example in the state of Tamil Nadu which is one of the divisions that come under India is plastic mulching is actually subsidized so farmers can actually go get subsidized plastic mulches so on one side there is the sustainable machine on agriculture that's trying to remove all of this there's also other side which is also counter-protectively working so that's sort of the scenario in the context of agricultural plastics I'll quickly move to the youth in the context of INC so like I was just mentioning the Asia Pacific environmental authorities forum is happening and we just had a youth forum before this and in one of the sessions we had this wonderful group of young people who were working on basically this was the 2021 we had a a nerdle spill disaster on the coast of Sri Lanka and this was the group of young people who had come together thousands of young people who came together and started manually designing the sieves and started silting their coastline and they've been doing it for 2 years 7 successfully so this is sort of what young people are also doing on ground and this is the perspective we are taking back to the negotiations so I guess one of the motivating and how we are doing it is in this context we have established the global youth the coalition and plastic pollution which brings in more than 6 youth constituencies including the constituency that works on UNEP processes we also have the constituency that is working on chemicals and waste we have the global youth health caucus and then the caucus that is working on sustainable communities and then the one that also works on sustainable consumption and protection so it is a coalition that has gotten 6 other youth constituencies working on other areas of the UN processes and trying to bring all of those perspectives into the negotiations and the youth processes as well majorly I guess the focus has been one of the focus of the coalition trying to bring the human rights perspective which the first draft acknowledges zero draft acknowledges the human rights perspective as well this is also something that we have been trying to bring especially in the context children in the context of let's say waste collection is also intrinsically linked with we have waste picking communities that also involve children so that is one perspective I guess we have been trying to advocate for the other is also in the context of again in the human rights perspective as well we are also trying to advocate for how waste collection is also connected to the waste pickers coming from a specific class which again ends up putting young people who are coming up in countries at a disadvantage position when they are growing up it also connects back to the health right to health and so on so that is a little bit overview of what is happening and what is motivating in the new big way but yes thank you so much for inviting me well thank you very much indeed Miss Anand for indeed reminding us of the importance of involving youth voices you covered many things but also for referring to the global youth coalition on plastic pollution which you are fully engaged in this is indeed very important for indeed mainstreaming youth in important processes such as the INC this provides me to make a parenthesis to say that the week of 16 October in Rome we left the world food forum and within the world food forum there is the youth forum which is really recognizing the important youth as to play in the context of agri-food system transformation so thank you very much we are running a bit short of time but we have and there has been a rich dialogue taking place in the Q&A module but there is one perhaps that I would like to address to Miss Anand which reads as follows it's very simple how can we get involved in the friends interaction agenda and it is coming from Kelly Sheridan the US very export council Miss Anand do you want to take that one? Thank you and we are quite happy to share information through the documents and presentations that will be circulated in relation to this briefing that's the best way I think that we can get the word out there for those interested to join the friends thank you we look forward also to information on the event you will be organizing before I in C3 I think this brings us to the end of today's conversation thank you very much for a very fruitful discussion I hope that this event today offers a platform and space for our members and other stakeholders to share information on ongoing work and learn about other good practices on how to manage plastics in agriculture I think we had clear messages from our experts within the sector about the importance that plastic products currently play in food security but also their potential on if mismanaged we have also heard that the sustainable management of plastic products and their waste on firms pose particular and complex problems that require sector specific solutions we hope that these messages will prove helpful to the discussion at the next discussion of the next session of INC, INC3 and a bit of advertisement to say that for your environment agenda, we'd like to take the opportunity to inform you of some of the upcoming activities including the celebration of the World Food Day on 16 October to celebrate this important UND in Geneva will be organizing an event on that day in collaboration with the FAO Plant Protection and Protection Division on Agroecology and Water you know it can indeed address the urgent issues related to water management Rome will have its flagship World Food Day event and in New York there will be a joint event with the New York Botanical Garden organized by our colleagues in the liaison in New York in celebration of the World Food Forum flagship week from 16 to 20 October in Rome our liaison office in Geneva will be hosting a youth photo contest at the Palais des Nations which with a launch of a photo exhibition on the 16th of October for those based in Geneva of course we hope you will be able to visit the Palais to see the inspiration photos submitted by youth which align with the theme of the World Food Day and World Food Forum Agrifood Systems Transformation Accelerates Climate Action with that thank you again to all we look forward to continuing this discussion there will be a number of other INCs so I guess there will be other opportunity to update you and to keep creating this moment among the importance of urgent and decisive action with that, thank you very much big thanks also to my colleagues in New York, in Geneva for working with us in this event bye bye have a good day in New York, we just start thank you thank you Dominic excellent moderation and your advancement for our World Food Day in New York with the Botanical Garden have a nice evening thank you bye bye