The SJES team was approached by the DPP (Dialogue on Plastic Pollution) Secretariat for feedback on their Zero Draft in preparation for the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Thirteenth Ministerial Conference (MC13) scheduled in Abu Dhabi from 26-29 February 2024. In our submission, the SJES team highlighted the significant role of subsidies in the plastic industry and underscored the broader social implications of plastic pollution, especially on marginalized communities. They recommended clearer waste management guidelines, enhanced transparency through better plastic labeling, and championed principles like the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP) and extended producer responsibility (EPR). With this feedback, the team aspires to strengthen the WTO's approach against plastic pollution by integrating environmental and social concerns. You can find our submission attached below.  

Last November, States that took part in COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh agreed to pass a new funding arrangement for responding to loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change. Loss and damage (L&D) refers to the monetary and non-monetary losses and damages that people have experienced and will experience due to sudden and slow-onset events. Economic, or tangible, L&D includes the loss of property and livelihood, changes in labor and agricultural productivity, cost of medical treatments associated with climatic events, and so forth. Non-economic, or intangible, L&D includes but is not limited to the mental health impacts, loss of ecosystems, and loss of culture (places, artifacts, language, etc.) from climate change.

People who are most affected by and vulnerable to further L&D have contributed the least to the climate crisis. Therefore, is it morally right that those who are most responsible for the climate crisis should finance the new funding arrangement for L&D. Taking up the need to address L&D in an ethical manner, the Human Impacts of Climate Change programme published this month a new briefing paper on “Fair Sources of Finance for a New Loss and Damage Funding Arrangement.” The options offered in the paper are meant to present policy makers with feasible and fair sources of finance for funding the new L&D arrangement without taking money away from needed action into climate change mitigation and adaptation. Grounded in principles like polluter pays, historic responsibility, and needs based, the options center redressing fossil fuel harm, exploring existing financial instruments, and supporting a more just and equitable world. 

2023 is an opportunity for us to celebrate 75 years of Quaker peace and justice work at the UN. Read our newest QUNO Review to learn more about the work of our New York and Geneva offices during this past year, and to learn about the work ahead.

QUNO UN representative Kavita Desai delivered an intervention at the multistakeholder consultations for the Summit of the Future convened by the Summit’s co-facilitators, the permanent missions of Germany and Namibia to the UN. Drawing on insights from the recently submitted Civil-Society UN Prevention Platform paper on the New Agenda for Peace, Kavita called for peace to be a focus, highlighting the need for the concrete and actionable steps to build peace to come out of the Summit.

Quakers support Indigenous peoples’ rights, based on our commitment to peace and justice. We recognise the historical and ongoing injustice faced by Indigenous peoples and the direct role historically played by Quakers in the genocide of Indigenous peoples. Today, Quaker support for Indigenous peoples in their struggles for justice has taken form at both the community, national and international level, including long-standing support to establish the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Over the years, QUNO has backed efforts to secure and strengthen the rights of Indigenous peoples, predominantly through supporting the work of the Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC). In the context of the climate negotiations, QUNO’s Human Impacts of Climate Change programme advocates for human rights-based, urgent and ambitious climate action and raises up the voices of those most marginalized and vulnerable. We have been observers to the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform since its first meeting in 2018.

International environmental law is central to climate action. For example, the 2015 Paris Agreement, is a universal climate change agreement through which both developing and developed countries work together on climate mitigation and adaptation. This 2-sider offers an overview of some of the key agreements and sources of international environmental law that can benefit local and national climate action efforts.

Incorporating human rights into climate policies and actions is known as a human rights-based approach. Human rights-based approaches ensure public inclusion and promote fairness, leading to more coherent, legitimate and sustainable policy outcomes. Whilst some countries resist human rights, human rights-based approaches ensure that climate action is approached as both a technical effort to cut emissions and as an effort to address human rights and social inequality. This 2-sider offers a brief introduction to the topic alongside inspiring examples from all over the world of what is being done to protect people and planet.

The different organizations and committees that make up the international human rights system work to promote and protect what individuals and communities need to be safe and well. This 2-sider explores how climate change is addressed within the human rights framework and how to get involved in advocating for climate action that addresses human rights and social inequality.

With quantities of waste steadily rising worldwide, packaging material and packaging waste have emerged as critical areas for action at various levels. Governments and businesses must consider political risks and ways to anticipate, understand and mitigate them in international trade. 

Over the past decade, governments have continually prioritised waste prevention, based on the Circular Economy waste hierarchy framework: avoidance (i.e. package-less), reuse, recycling, recovery, and disposal. However, waste advocates, regulators, and policymakers have yet to prioritise the top tiers of this circular economy hierarchy (e.g., avoidance promoted by package-less products and implementation of reuse systems).

As interest in reducing plastic waste grows, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that trade policies minimise packaging waste and improve reuse strategies across regions. To spark innovative thinking and valuable discussions on this topic, QUNO has is delighted to present its latest report, which contains a focused analysis of the state of play of the packaging-free retail sector in Latin America, examining policy barriers (in the role of services) affecting the wider uptake of the packaging-free retail models in the region. This work seeks to inform members and complement the work being carried out at the World Trade Organization's Informal Dialogue on Plastics Pollution and Environmentally Sustainable Plastics Trade, and the United Nations Environment Program's Global Plastic Treaty Negotiations.

Attached you will be able to find both our comprehensive report, and a policy brief.