Climate Change: Tackle Plastic Pollution Urgently, Scientists Urge World Leaders

Scientists are warning politicians that while they focus on combating climate change, they shouldn¡¯t sideline plastic pollution, as together, they¡¯re making matters worse.

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They urge that instead, they should be seen together as one big issue that needs to be tackled instantly.

This is according to a study published by researchers from the Zoological Society of London and Bangor University. As a part of the study, the team highlighted three crucial ways climate change and plastic pollution are connected.

Firstly, they highlight that manufacturing plastic goods releases a ton of greenhouse gas emissions. This is not just causing more of the plastic waste to be generated but its process is also gradually affecting the air with emissions.

Secondly, extreme weather events such as floods, typhoons that are a result of climate change cause immense devastation. This devastation is contributing to the dispersal of plastic pollution in the sea, affecting marine life along the way.

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Thirdly, they spoke about how climate change and plastic pollution is affecting the life of marine habitat. The heating of seas and oceans due to climate change is also affecting coral reefs as well as marine habitats. On the other hand, plastic is being ingested by marine animals and several habitats have been found loaded with microplastics.

The ZSL team estimates that between 2015 and 2020, plastic production has emitted 56 billion megatons of CO2. This according to them is around 10 to 13 percent of the entire global carbon budget.

Researchers are urging nations and politicians to take both these issues together and not separately. Professor Heather Koldewey from ZSL said, ¡°Plastic pollution is also having a global impact; from the top of Mount Everest to the deepest parts of our ocean. Both are having a detrimental effect on ocean biodiversity.¡±

She added, ¡°The compounding impact of both crises just exacerbates the problem. It¡¯s not a case of debating which issue is most important, it¡¯s recognising that the two crises are interconnected and require joint solutions.¡±

Representational Image: UMass

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Helen Ford, from Bangor University, who led the study, further explained, ¡°I have seen how even the most remote coral reefs are experiencing widespread coral death through global warming-caused mass bleaching. Plastic pollution is yet another threat to these stressed ecosystems.

She added, ¡°Our study shows that changes are already occurring from both plastic pollution and climate change that are affecting marine organisms across marine ecosystems and food webs, from the smallest plankton to the largest whale.¡±

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