Scientists are warning politicians immersed in climate change policy not to forget that the world is also in the midst of a plastic waste crisis.

They fear that so much energy is being expended on emissions policy that tackling plastic pollution will be sidelined.

A paper from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Bangor University says plastic pollution and climate change are not separate.

It says the issues are actually intertwined - and each makes the other worse.

Manufacturing plastic items adds to greenhouse gas emissions, while extreme weather such as floods and typhoons associated with a heating planet will disperse and worsen plastic pollution in the sea.

The researchers highlight that marine species and ecosystems, such as coral reefs, are taking a double hit from both problems.

Reefs and other vulnerable habitats are also suffering from the seas heating, from ocean acidification, pollution from farms and industry, dredging, development, tourism and over-fishing.

And in addition, sea ice is a major trap for microplastics, which will be released into the ocean as the ice melts due to warming.

The researchers want politicians to address all these issues – and not to allow climate change to take all the policy “bandwidth”.

Professor Heather Koldewey from ZSL said: “Climate change is undoubtedly one of the most critical global threats of our time. 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; with climate change heating ocean temperatures and bleaching coral reefs, to plastic damaging habitats and causing fatalities among marine species.

“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.”

Professor Koldewey added: “The biggest shift will be moving away from wasteful single-use plastic and from a linear to circular economy that reduces the demand for damaging fossil fuels.”

Helen Ford, from Bangor University, who led the study, said: “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.

“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.”

ZSL is urging world governments and policy makers to put nature at the heart of all decision making in order to jointly tackle the combined global threats of climate change and biodiversity loss.

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This toolkit was conceived for the use of two groups of World Bank Group (WBG) staff and consultants. The primary target users consist of social protection and labor (SPL) specialists who help WBG client countries to strengthen the natural-disaster responsiveness of SPL systems, or more broadly, to mainstream DRM in the country’s SPL policies, programs, and service deliveries. The second most important target users are those who belong to either disaster risk management (DRM) or disaster risk financing (DRF) communities, those work closely with and support the first group, or those are interested in using SPL programs and services as a platform to support their objectives. It is our hope that the knowledge and insights contained in this toolkit will increase the effectiveness of the two target users in assisting their country clients. While some parts of this toolkit are relevant only to WBG staff and consultants, we hope many other parts will also be useful for their in-country counterparts.

SPL specialists in the WBG are typically trained in economics, political science, sociology, and other social sciences. In contrast, DRM specialists tend to be engineers, urban planners, and environmental scientists. Many in the DRF community have degrees in financial economics and business management.

It is not among our objectives to convert SPL specialists into DRM or DRF specialists, or vice-versa. However, our objective includes facilitating communication among the three groups of specialists. When people from different professional specializations come to work together, even a simple word like “risk” is interpreted differently. Engineers are likely to think of physical damage and destruction, where death and injury are the primary human impact to be minimized. SPL specialists, on the other hand, would think of loss of job and income, declining consumption (particularly food), and its long-term impact on human capital. This is what Robert Chambers called “Professional Biases” in his classic book, Rural Development: Putting the Last First. However, to face cross-sectoral challenges, understanding the perspectives of partners from different disciplines is important.

It is also among our objectives to be able to answer questions like those below, which often come to the minds of WBG SPL specialists when they are asked about the linkage between their field and DRM:

• What SPL instruments are useful for DRM purposes?
• What are the financial options to make the country’s SPL system ready for disasters?
• What are the difference between DRM and climate change adaptation (CCA), and how do they relate to each other?
• What DRM/DRF instruments are critical to SPL?
• What kind of information needs to be shared between SPL and DRM? E.g. How to integrate poverty maps (SPL) and hazard maps (DRM)?
• How can the most vulnerable people be identified to render most needed assistance to them?
• When to use in-kind transfer (e.g. school feeding programs) vs. cash-based approaches for DRM?
• How to best support specific groups of vulnerable populations, e.g. female-headed households, households with disabilities, and/or the elderly in preparation for disasters?
• What institutional mechanism is required to assist displaced persons in preparation for disasters?
• How should the division of labor and coordination mechanisms be organized between the SPL and DRM communities, and at what level (e.g. national, sub-national and local)?
• How can civil society and the private sector be effectively engaged for integrating SRM with DRM?
• What is the role that civil society and the private sector play in engaging in SRM and DRM activities?
• What kind of institutions, legal instruments, and regulatory arrangements need to be built to ensure the integration of SRM with DRM?
• Where does one find SPL and DRM experts who can offer advice?

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