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The original was posted on /r/worldnews by /u/IntrepidGentian on 2024-04-18 16:08:35.
Plastics industry heats world four times as much as air travel, report finds
Submitted 2 years ago by bot@lemmit.online [bot] to worldnews@lemmit.online
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 2 years ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Pollution from the plastics industry is a major force behind the heating of the planet, according to a new report from the federal government.
And if plastic production remains constant, by 2050 it could burn through nearly a fifth of the Earth’s remaining carbon budget — the amount of carbon dioxide climate scientists believe can be burned without tipping the climate into unsafe territory.
The report from the national lab comes out as civil society and public health groups, plastics industry representatives and members of national governments prepare to travel to Ottawa, Canada, for the fourth meeting of the International Negotiating Committee (INC-4), which seeks to create a legally binding treaty to reduce plastics pollution.
In last fall’s negotiations in Kenya, public health and environmental campaigners focused on the dangers posed by plastics — including micro- and nano-plastics — in the human body and environment.
The researchers found that more than 75 percent of the greenhouse gasses generated by plastics are released in the steps before plastics compounds are assembled — as petroleum products are extracted, refined and converted into monomers, the building blocks of common polymers like polyethylene or polyvinyl chloride.
“While global leaders are trying to negotiate a solution to the plastic crisis, the petrochemical industry is investing billions of dollars in making the problem rapidly worse,” said Neil Tangri of the University of California at Berkeley, an advance reviewer of the report.
The original article contains 549 words, the summary contains 233 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!