MEDIA ADVISORY: Global South Leaders Respond to INC-4 Negotiations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: APRIL 28, 2024

Ottawa, Canada– Global South leaders–including a Member State Delegate, frontline community leader, policy expert, and youth activist– will share their perspectives on the lastics treaty negotiations thus far. The stakes could not be higher–what happens in the rooms of the Shaw Center will have a direct and profound impact on our lives and the lives of our families and communities.

The imbalanced power dynamics between the Global North and Global South in the plastics treaty negotiations mirror the circumstances of the plastics crisis itself. The Global South has long been wrongfully accused as the source of plastic pollution, despite the fact that most plastic production and consumption is centered in the Global North. Furthermore, we have been the target of choice for illegal traffic and dumping of plastic waste, and are made to suffer its most severe impacts to our health, and natural environments. 

Panelists  

Santos Virgilio, Delegate of Member State Angola: Experience Negotiating for the Global South 

Ana Rocha, Global Plastics Policy Director, GAIA (Tanzania):  Policy Update on the Negotiations  and What it Means for the Global South

Dorothy Otieno, CEJAD, Kenya , GAIA Africa: Financial Mechanisms &  False Solutions

Alejandra Parra, GAIA Latin America and the Caribbean, RADA (Chile) 

Aeshnina Azzahra, River Warrior Indonesia, GAIA Asia Pacific: Waste Colonialism in the Global South

Press contacts:

GAIA Africa: Carissa Marnce, +27 76 934 6156,  carissa@no-burn.org

GAIA Asia Pacific: Sonia G. Astudillo, +63 9175969286, sonia@no-burn.org

GAIA América Latina: Camila Aguilera, +56 9 5 111 1599, camila@no-burn.org 

GAIA Global: Claire Arkin, +1 973 444 4869, claire@no-burn.org

For more information about GAIA’s treaty advocacy, please visit  no-burn.org/unea-plastics-treaty, follow us on X @gaianoburn, and read our Press kit.

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GAIA is a worldwide alliance of more than 1,000 grassroots groups, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in over 90 countries. With our work we aim to catalyze a global shift towards environmental justice by strengthening grassroots social movements that advance solutions to waste and pollution. We envision a just, zero waste world built on respect for ecological limits and community rights, where people are free from the burden of toxic pollution, and resources are sustainably conserved, not burned or dumped.