Climate change and plastic pollution may look like separate issues. But they are, in fact, two sides of the same crisis: the industry’s addiction to fossil fuels. 

Fossil fuel emissions account for 89% of the CO2 that drives global warming and 99% of all plastic is made from fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency projects that petrochemicals and plastics will be the single largest driver of growth in world oil demand in the coming decades. By 2030, plastic production alone is projected to consume one in every six barrels of oil.

The world is in desperate need of a course correction, and this June at the Bonn Climate Change Conference as governments, scientists and NGOs have gathered again to discuss the climate crisis, Greenpeace hosted a side event to aimed at discussing ways to solve these crises together if we are to solve either of them at all. 

One addiction, two crises 

Climate warming and the plastics crisis have the same root cause: extracting and using  fossil fuels, which also leads to producing too much plastic. 

The similarities continue with something less discussed: the twin crises actively worsen each other. Plastics emit greenhouse gases throughout their entire lifecycle — from extraction and manufacturing to transport and disposal. In fact, plastics account for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire aviation sector. 

As climate change raises temperatures and intensifies UV radiation, it accelerates the rate at which plastics break down into microplastics — making them more pervasive, more toxic, and harder to recover. Climate change worsens the plastics crisis. The plastics crisis worsens climate change. They are not parallel problems. They are in fact a feedback loop.

The good news

It’s not too late though. Alternatives for the dual crisis are readily available. Our recent report shows how renewable energy capacity has expanded rapidly in the past 10 years since the Paris Agreement was reached – outstripping predictions as the energy landscape underwent tremendous change. Denmark has, for example, powered 88% of its grid with renewable energy in recent years, and Costa Rica powered 98.6% of its electricity from renewable sources in 2025. 

Looking towards plastics, we know that implementing reuse systems and other policies to reduce plastic use could virtually eliminate plastic packaging pollution by 2040. Everyday, we see solutions and innovations spring from many parts of the globe, proving that the barriers are not technical, but political.  

Thirty years of ignoring the F word

For more than thirty years, the UNFCCC — the world’s primary forum, where most of the world governments come together to discuss how to solve climate change — failed to say the most important word relevant to its mandate: fossil fuels. At COP28 in Dubai in 2023, the COP outcome explicitly recognised the primary driver of the problem it exists to resolve.

This is not by accident. A small number of governments and corporate actors with significant fossil fuel interests have consistently used the procedural requirements of consensus-based multilateralism to block that language. t In a consensus-based process the obstructive governments and fossil-fuel interests can run down the clock in every negotiating session without ever having to commit to meaningful action. 

The very same governments — and many of the same corporations with lobbyists embedded in their official delegations — are running identical playbooks in Global Plastics Treaty negotiations, preventing the Treaty from addressing the issue at its source and blocking measures to cut production and use. Same players, same moves, same outcomes — unless we choose differently. 

We still have a chance, but it’s fleeting. 

For both the UNFCCC and the Global Plastics Treaty, the imperative is the same: stop managing the symptoms and address the systems that produce them.

For climate change, this means a just transition away from fossil fuels that is fast, fair, and funded, with governments advancing global co-operation and delivering credible national roadmaps to get there.

For the Global Plastics Treaty, it means addressing the full lifecycle of plastics, beginning upstream by cutting plastic production. 

What can the Plastics Treaty learn from the UNFCCC? 

The Paris Agreement’s architecture — voluntary, nationally-determined commitments, no binding limits on fossil fuel production — has repeatedly been weaponised by some governments against meaningful action and made the 1.5℃ limit harder to reach. 

While the Paris Agreement has helped to accelerate the clean energy transition, lower projected global greenhouse gas emissions and reduced the projected temperature increase, there is still a large 1.5°C ambition gap that needs to be closed. Simply put, more needs to be done.

The Global Plastics Treaty must not be a repeat of the delays we’ve seen in climate action. It needs global, legally binding measures to reduce plastic production from the outset, coupled with investment in reuse systems, product redesign, and improved waste management, with no country left behind in that transition. A treaty focused exclusively on waste management — the end of the pipe, not the tap — will perpetuate the problem it is meant to fix. Neither crisis affords that kind of time.

Consensus Kills 

While no country should be left behind, and while consensus can play an important role in building broad-based support, we cannot continue to allow a small number of blocking states to hold back the will of the majority and the mandate of the people. We hear whispers that multilateralism is dead. But multilateralism is alive. It is being stymied by a small number of blocking states in both the UNFCCC and the Plastics Treaty negotiations. 

Multilateralism is an essential condition for human survival and to solve the world’s biggest crises – it needs to be protected from the interests that have learned to use its architecture as a delay mechanism. This must be done by holding up the science clearly enough that no government can look at it and pretend they don’t know what it says.

The science on plastics is not waiting to be discovered. The damage is visible: microplastics have been found in our blood, breast milk, and even in the food our babies eat. The evidence linking plastic exposure to endocrine disruption, fertility impacts, and cancer risk is growing. What is missing is the political will to let the evidence speak louder than those profiting from inaction.

The first conference on the Transition away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta revealed that countries are no longer willing to wait. Fifty-seven countries — representing a third of the world’s economy — broke free from the consensus chokehold of the UNFCCC and held a conversation not only brave enough to say “fossil fuels” but centred entirely around them. 

The Plastics Treaty still has a chance, and in March 2027, countries will come together again to attempt to finalise the agreement. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity that we must not miss. Governments must be bold and brave in their solutions. 

Are countries ready to connect the dots and act? 

Let’s end the age of plastic!

Ask world leaders to support Global Plastic Treaty so that we can finally turn off the tap and end the age of plastic.

Take action

Jacob Kean Hammerson is the Global Plastics Policy Lead at Greenpeace USA.

The Amazon arrives in Paris, Deep Sea Mining goes to The Hague, and speed limits come to Germany. Here are some of our favourite images from Greenpeace work around the world this week.

France – Indigenous leaders from the Brazilian and Guyanese Amazon are in Paris for the ‘True Cost of Gold’ advocacy tour, bringing Indigenous leaders from the Brazilian Amazon to France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. The tour follows the release of Greenpeace Brazil’s investigation “Gold Laundering in the Amazon: Anatomy of a Fraud” and aims to raise awareness about the impacts of illegal gold mining on Indigenous territories, forests and rivers, while calling for stronger traceability and accountability across global gold supply chains.
The delegation includes Alessandra Korap Munduruku, Juma Xipaia (pictured), Megaron Txucarramãe, Beptuk Metuktire and Tapinkili Anaïman.

The Netherlands – More than 230,000 people have signed a petition calling for a halt to deep-sea mining before it even begins. Greenpeace Netherlands presented the petition to the House of Representatives Committee for Climate and Green Growth in The Hague during the week of World Oceans Day. Greenpeace is calling on The Netherlands to advocate for a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining in international waters. This means that deep-sea mining companies would not be allowed to begin operations as long as the consequences remain insufficiently understood.

Switzerland – Greenpeace activists project two images onto the façade of the Swiss Federal Palace. The first is reminiscent of the famous painting “The Scream” by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch and is designed to resemble the symbol for radioactivity. The activists aim to draw attention to the fact that a return to nuclear energy poses a threat to Switzerland.

Germany – Greenpeace Germany activists protest with speed limit signs with along the Autobahn at the border entry to Germany. Environmental activists are calling for a general speed limit on the autobahn to limit fuel consumption in response to the climate crisis.

Spain – To mark World Environment Day, on 5 June, Greenpeace Spain activists unfurled a giant cartoon in Barcelona’s Park Güell. In this image, a climber holds a sign reading ‘happy world environment day’.

Indonesia – The Greenpeace-initiated ‘Festival Laut’ (Ocean Festival) 2026 brought together thousands of people at Taman Inspirasi Muntig Siokan, Bali, to spotlight the crises facing Indonesia’s oceans, from the exploitation of fishers and plastic pollution to the impact of the climate crisis on coastal communities.

Mexico – In a historic initiative, more than 100 civil society organizations and networks from Mexico and the United States joined forces to call on President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo to address the serious social and environmental issues affecting the country.
Two days before the 2026 World Cup opening ceremony, Greenpeace Mexico activists unfurled a massive 21-meter-long banner 60 meters high on the Estela de Luz. The groups denounced that issues of migration, disappearances, violence, dispossession, forced displacement, and environmental justice have been ignored, and that the commercial interests of the USMCA (United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement) take precedence over the people. The message sent to the Mexican government regarding these issues was clear: “The world is watching.”

Greenpeace has been a pioneer of photo activism for more than 50 years, and remains committed to bearing witness and exposing environmental injustice through the images we capture.

To see more Greenpeace photos and videos, visit our Media Library.