After key 2025 negotiations faltered over production, waste and regulation, this Davos 2026 session examines whether a global plastics treaty remains achievable.
At Davos 2026, leaders asked whether a global plastics treaty is still achievable after 2025 negotiations stalled. European Commissioner Jessika Roswall argued momentum remains: “We really need it,” and the treaty must be “future proof” by tackling plastics’ “full life cycle,” not just recycling. She emphasized that industry also needs predictability and warned Europe’s recycling sector is “in a crisis,” citing capacity declines and bankruptcies, while the EU pursues harmonized standards, customs measures against unfair imports, and clearer rules for chemical recycling.
OMV CEO Alfred Stern framed plastics as a development reality for “8 billion people,” but said today’s economics still favor a linear system. Progress requires regulatory incentives, infrastructure investment, and flexibility to innovate: “If we have too strict regulation from the beginning, it will not allow us to make those improvements.” He also called for reducing waste exports and recognizing “different speeds” across regions.
Investor Frank Tang Kui stressed consumer demand for sustainable products “at the same price,” urging design changes (mono-materials, durability), take-back systems, and support for innovation in high-performance recycling.
Timor-Leste President José Ramos-Horta made the case moral and practical, seeking a treaty and “tax on those who continue to produce this nefarious plastic,” as vulnerable nations bear pollution they didn’t create.
Welcome. I'm Kelly Sims Gallagher, I'm the dean of the Fletcher School, and our panel today is on the topic of will we ever have a plastics treaty? We have a wonderful panel with us. I want to recognize the Honorable Jessica Roswell, the commissioner for environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy for the European Commission. Alfred Stern, the CEO of OMV AG, and Frank Tang Qi, who is chairman and CEO of Fountain Partners Asia from Hong Kong. And we are also very honored to have the president of Timor-Leste, Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta, who will make an address later in our panel. Just to set the stage for our live audience, in August to 2025, negotiations for Global Plastics Treaty stalled once again, leaving the world without a clear path forward. Meanwhile, plastic pollution continues to pose growing challenges for climate, health and economies around the world. So the question before us is, can leaders still find common ground and build the trust needed to reach a meaningful agreement? Our objectives today are to draw attention to the growing climate, health and economic costs of plastic pollution. Identify the critical priorities towards landing a treaty, and maybe we can get into some conversation about the different pathways for for doing that and approaches. And we also want to highlight innovative technologies addressing multiple environmental crises at once. So, let's begin with Commissioner Roswell. What is your vision for Global Plastics Treaty? How do you think the upcoming negotiation rounds can get us to a truly global treaty that ends pollution?
Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. And thank you for organizing this important topic. And yes, I was in Geneva. And yes, I was disappointed that we didn't get an agreement. But to be honest, in fact, it it failed again, you said but we have not discussed it so for too long. So I mean, I'm still hoping. Well, I'm very hopeful because. And why is that? Because we really need it. Not only because we have plastic pollution that is really growing and it's terrible all over the globe and for our in our rivers and in our waters. And this is something that people really care about also. And of course, it's important for our health. And all this is also important for industries to have a robust framework. So I think there are all the reasons there then multilateral negotiations today is of course, well, they are always difficult, but they are difficult. What I want and I'm hopeful and I'm hopeful that we can get. And I think it's necessary that we get a treaty that is future proof. That is the tackle. The full life cycle of plastic is cannot only be about reuse and re reuse. The full life cycle, the full life management. This is important for me. What happens now, is that we in a couple of weeks only will. See a new share. Sharing this. I think that is very important. We are, as a European Union, looking for a transparent process. We want to have a share that can move the process forward. I think the momentum is here now. And that's why I it's important that the share also put a pathway on. On how he or she sees the future of, of the negotiations. So the question, the first question, you said, depressed, not depressed in the in Geneva, not depressed, but I was of course, not very happy. But I am still very hopeful because I see the need and I see that people and industries really also want a treaty.
So just to do a quick follow up. So we'll have a new chair voted on in February, I believe. And, and at that point that that person, the chair, will have a strong role to play in terms of shaping the process going forward. How do you see, what kind of a productive process do you envision? Because there there is always the challenge of having a universal treaty that applies to everyone with a consensus voting process or a, moving to a different process that isn't consensus based, but might allow you to to move faster and, be more productive.
I mean, on the first part of the question is, of course, I'm I hope that the new chair takes some experience from from what we've done so far and why it didn't succeed in Geneva. And learn from that and see how can we move forward. I think that we have I mean, can.
You say a little bit about some of the challenges?
Well, we of course, between we are a big group of ambitious countries, who wants to see an ambitious treaty? Because that is what people want and, and what the globe needs. And then, of course, then.
You're referring to the, the high ambition.
The high ambition. Exactly. And, and, but with that said, we also need to be if we want to have a treaty, everybody needs us in all negotiations, need to move and see where is the some kind of consensus. As I said, for me, it's important to have a future proof, treaty, but also a treaty that is taking tackling from the the whole process, the whole life cycle of plastic. And because that is what what we really need. I also want to so I mean that the new chair takes into account the different views, but also trying to to put the path to the next, ink when we will meet. I don't know when that will be, but I think it's very important that we prepare that work and, and, and in a very open and transparent way from sorry, from my point of view at the moment, of course, I'm trying to also reach out to different countries and, and, and also industries to see where can we move forward. Because I really want to see this treaty. So it's not that I only waiting for a chair. I'm also trying to being here talking about it, but also, well, at the same time, the European Union, we are moving forward with a lot of regulations. Also to to decrease the amount of plastic pollution, because we see that the plastic pollution, the plastic consumption in one way also is growing extremely, we cannot really handle it. So we need to be more sustainable in that.
So I'm hearing from you, you want a universal global treaty that covers the full life cycle of of plastics. Okay, let's let's go next to Alfred Stern. Can you talk a little bit about how OMV sees this? You have invested substantially in plastic circularity, infrastructure, building some new factories for plastic separation and so forth. So please tell us a little bit about how you how you look at this.
Yeah, I will be happy to do so. But first of all, thank you for inviting me to the panel here. Great to be here. Maybe I start saying at OMV, circularity is part of our strategy. And when we talk about our purpose of reinventing everyday essentials, this is what we mean. How can we move from a linear supply chain to a circular supply chain. And we have done a number, quite a significant number of investments, both in innovation but also in assets in order to achieve that. But, in my view, it's really important to in those kind of activities to stay focused on the issue at hand. What is it that we are trying to solve for? And, what we are looking for is, regulatory support in order to drive this circularity agenda forward. Now, let me, look a little bit, on a, on a higher level on this, and I think that's important if you, if you look at, 8 billion people in this world, trying to live better lives, than, I think the three R's are still important, right? And to start with reduce. And that would actually mean we need to make sure that we use material efficiency, to the maximum possible. We should avoid applications that are unnecessary. And we should make sure we use the materials that have the best sustainable efficiency that they are. Plastics can make a significant contribution in many of those areas. But, not if we neglect the second two hours, which is reuse and recycle. And when I come to reuse, the fact today is simply that our all the economic systems that we have are, are favoring linear economy systems. It's just lower cost to produce, use and then deposit off. And we need to find ways and get regulatory support to close that, circle. Our experiences, in Austria, for example, a few years ago, they introduced a deposit system for bottles. And we know those are incentives that are closing the loop on reusable bottles. Right. This is this is how this works practically and and creates the right incentives. And in the end, about the recycling. It's very similar, actually, because, the year we need to create infrastructure, in order to collect, sort and then create the feedstocks for the recycling activities. And, I do believe this will be very different in the different regions of the world. And when I think about the plastics treaty, I would want to make sure that we keep that in mind, that not all the regions are the same. If I look here in Europe, waste collection is standard, but all of us also pay for waste collection. This isn't the case in all the regions and all the countries. And we need to create systems that allow the investments into these waste collection systems so that the, that, the waste. And that's not just plastic waste that is that applies for all kind of waste stays out of the environment. And creating those systems will be very expensive and requires the economic drivers in order to do that. So for me, it would be, for us at OMV, it would be extremely helpful to get regulatory support that is moving the system from a linear to a circular system, creating the right incentives, to make this also economically feasible, because this is what is going to drive it. In the end, there is no government that has enough money, or enough resources in order to create the waste collection infrastructure, the sorting infrastructure, the recycling infrastructure and do all those things. It will have to be an entrepreneurial activity. And for that, we need to have the right framework that creates that. Making plastic waste and interesting feedstock will create such incentives, and we can drive it in that direction. And I think those are, are the things I also think it doesn't just have to drive the economic feasibility of the activities that we have, but we do need to invest heavily into innovation. We should be painfully aware that we are in an innovator's dilemma. We are competing today against supply chains that are, 70 to 100 year plus old and that have optimized. I can tell you, at OMV we have excellent engineers. When I put them on this, they will find a lot of cost optimization and a lot of ways how to make this cheaper, how to bring the quality up. So investments into the infrastructure, investments into the, into the assets and innovation will be key to go forward. And having regulation that enables this would be very helpful. Because in the end and that will be my my last point here. We do need to understand that we are an innovator's dilemma. So what we start and OMV, we have actually recycling activities and other activities in operation today. We can see that we are at the beginning of something, and we still need to optimize further. And if we have too strict regulation from the beginning, it will not allow us to make those improvements, going forward.
So let me just ask you a follow up question to, as you know, in in global treaty making, often enforcement and compliance is very difficult because we lack the, the mechanisms to be able to ensure compliance, maybe the use of sanctions very rare in environmental treaties. So what would you prioritize in terms of that regulatory support you mentioned you're looking for at the national level, or maybe in the EU case, you know, at the commission level? And what would you prioritize in terms of the types of regulatory support you're looking for from a global treaty?
Yeah, I think, of course, the national implementations are key, and we can see that every day in the EU, right? That things get decided in Brussels, then take quite a long time in order to be rolled out in the different countries. So if we can make that more efficient, that would, that would always be good, in order to do that, but, I would want to look at it from a global perspective because with waste in total, this is not just plastic waste but also plastic waste. But I think it's even even more important in hazardous waste. Right. There is a global trade, and that is an effect of the, of the legal situation about the regulatory frameworks being very different in different regions of this world. And this, this doesn't make any sense, right? Waste should be a raw material and should not be something that we export for reprocessing in other places. So creating those kind of conditions to make sure. Yeah. Europe is a is a net importer of plastics. Yeah. We shouldn't be we should recycle that and keep the feedstock in the region. It is going to make us a stronger economy. We shouldn't be shipping out the waste to other places. And, and I think from that perspective a global treaty would be extremely helpful, but does require the translation into, regional laws. I think the commitment from governments will be extremely important. We have a we have started in 2017, a project called Project Stop in Indonesia, and we picked Indonesia as a partner because there was a very strong commitment, of the regulator, that they wanted to address the plastic waste thing. And that was extremely helpful.
So it sounds like you're looking for, a harmonized approach through the Global Plastics Treaty so that we're not creating a lot of differentiation of of policy at the national level, to create more of that level playing field.
Yeah. I think the issue, or the piece that we need to keep in mind and that was my my plea for making sure we, we recognize the different speeds in the different region. I do think, things that might be feasible in, in developed economies, might be a lot more difficult in developing economies and, and making sure that we recognize that and we create a treaty that allows for this is extremely important because otherwise it can only fail. Right? If we if we put requests on people that cannot afford it, how can they agree to this?
So that brings up the very important question of finance. And who's going to pay for some of the transition? So I think it's great transition to Frank Tanki, what would your message be to the negotiators of a global plastics treaty? How do you think about this as an investor? Yeah.
I think the role of finance in this would offer, said the, resonate with me a lot in terms of different efforts. We are a private equity fund focused on consumer products investments. We also have a technology. Sorry, I have an industrial investment side as well. But consumer products is where a lot of plastics are being used. And, this is clearly a area of our focus. First of all, I'd say, Commissioner, what are you doing in terms of, you know, pushing and and coordinating to get the Global Plastic Treaty done is very, very important. And we do see that private sector plays a very important role. And for us, the incentive is, number one, consumers want this. And if we're able to, make recyclable products available to consumers and if the price is not significantly, you know, at a premium, consumers all want to choose those products. So in order to address this, you know, we need to look at the whole, problem to break it down into smaller problems. First is to use less to begin with. So we actually need to design, you know, the products to make it, using as less plastics achieve the same function as possible, it's difficult to do. And second is last longer. And that's another material science issue. And we are a big investor into the sportswear industry. So I'd like to use that as a case study because, you know, globally, every year, 15 million of ski pair of skis are being sold. There's a lot of plastics being used there. Every year there are 3 billion sports shoes are being sold, and every year there are more than 25 billion, 25 billion pieces of sports clothing are being sold. And, if you look at sports clothing, a lot of plastics are being used to achieve that functionality. And, you cannot just solve it by cotton, a lot of petrochemical. So, that's one area we have been very focused on, designed to use less, last longer. And then, when it comes to, the, you know, the industrial waste, there's a lot of plastics during the processing, you have all these, excess waste, and sometimes there's a different color. You know, it's kind of wrong color. It's off a bit, and you need to throw it away. No, we want to reuse them during the industrial production process. For example, on our ski production, we have so many different colors of plastic particles around, and we will gather them and, and now developed it into, sidewalls. So, you know, the ski, you know, there's a long in between. There's this, this long layer, and we have these very colorful mixed plastics serving as a sidewall. So consumers love it. And we were recycling the waste. It becomes a design. So, and then, you know, we are focusing on, using single plastic, families to design our products so it becomes recyclable. It's very easy to say, oh, you know, here's a piece, then, you know, we can just, you know, go recycle. If you design a ski helmet, there are a lot of different plastics, of different functions, of different hardness are being used. And they often come from many different plastic families. So if you give to somebody, people don't know how to recycle that. So we actually work with scientists to design a piece of ski helmet with one plastic family. So that's easy to recycle. So there's a lot of technology inside to make it happen. And I haven't even begun to talk about the actual recycling itself. So, so our we encourage our companies to really work with innovative companies. So I'll come back to this point about how government can help. So, we, for example, partner with, a company that uses enzyme technology to break down the pets into, you know, original mono former, and then they can use the mono former to reproduce the in the party, you know, polymer in order to, you know, make them into, again, high performance plastics because we're talking about sports area, right. High performance. That's another piece of technology. And we need to work with a lot of different companies who are, focused on this different type of innovations in order to make that happen. And last but not least is recycling itself. So where do you get them? How do you get them back? So we kind of designing all kinds of different programs to make that happen. For example, we have sports shoes that carries a QR code for consumers to, you know, at the end of the useful life, scan the QR code, register it, and then they just give it to the post office and send back for free. We have to have that whole closed loop in order to make that happen. And, one challenge Alfred mentioned is that when you have the linear program, it's always cheaper than this whole closed loop recycling, right now, because we are able to use this less last longer industrial waste. We are already able to achieve savings when it comes to, this circular circular products. Now, the adding on the recycling program that's going to last cost us money. Right. So so I would say that, when it comes to the, you know, government, and you know, the support on the regulator side, how can we, promote this recycling programs to actually get that, you know, start to start to turn right? We have the technology available. But we need to get the stuff back. The second that requires a, you know, a whole, not just one company.
Frank, you had started with this idea of incentives for consumers. Can I ask you to say a little bit more about that? Because it sounds like right now incentives are misaligned. Consumers don't have really clear incentives in every country to make that recycling decision, rather than, you know, throwing the, the the shoes in the trash. Right, right. So what kind of incentives do you think would be helpful?
I think for consumers, they want I think, you know, they just want the same products, eco friendly but at the same price. If you ask them to pay a substantial premium. Unfortunately, consumers today are still not willing to. So we just have to deal with that reality and make sure that we are able to achieve that full recycle. Again, you know, if we just recycle the waste very well and we use less, we are already able to achieve, savings. So our companies are already incentivized to do that because we are we are able to price at the same. Yeah. And and so that's one thing now, sometimes it's less cost issue. It's more of a habit issue for consumers. It's just a, it's a hassle to think about, okay, I need to scan the QR code and go to the post office. And, you know, is there some, you know, a bin somewhere I can just throw it in, but I still need to carry them, you know, remember to on the way to go to office and try to throw it somewhere. Right. It's just a hassle. So, that requires a longer consumer education, but that convenience, that program, cannot be easily created by one single company. I think it does require government regulators to help to, make that system work better.
One, type of policy that strikes me as potentially helpful in this domain. Again, we'd be more at the national level here. Would be some sort of fee based system where you're imposing some sort of fee on purchase of non-recyclable, you know, products and providing a rebate to incentivize the consumers, to actually, you know, take that extra trip to the post office and, and make, make the decision to recycle.
So there there is actually this kind of incentive schemes around, in different regions of the world. I think in Europe we have quite a lot. I mentioned deposits on bottles. Right. Yeah. It, you can maybe argue, maybe there's some some countries in the world where this works without the deposit, but we have, clear studies that show deposits increase their return rate very significantly of bottles. Right. So those are incentive systems, that, that show the people that we are interested in bringing these things back. Right. That can be extended, but also, extended producer responsibility systems, like we EPR systems like we have in Europe since many, many years, that, that are requiring that packaging materials are collected and brought back. This is what helped us in Europe to build up the waste collection systems that we have and to finance them, and these kind of ideas, I think one can build on.
Yes.
I mean.
I mean, I totally agree also, what had been said on the circularity and the circular economy and I think, which is the most important thing for us and in this crucial moment, also necessary due to that, we in Europe, we don't have all the resources. So we need to treat the waste as a as a feedstock, as you say. But here I think that we need to do this. And today, as you say, and that depends on a lot of different materials we're talking about, of course. But the the linear model has been there forever and we need to go to circular. And it's true that sometimes the virgin materials, whatever that is, is less expensive and than the secondary. So we need to do a lot of things both I think to also change consumers mindset. Well, I also me as a policymaker, we all need to have a change of mindset here because I absolutely agree with you. And today we nobody wants to pay this premium price. Not only consumers don't want to pay it, but neither in business to business. So we need to change because I don't think that it's written in stone, that the linear model gives the lower price. Also, circularity has the possibility, so change mindset for all of us, but also, of course building the infrastructure. And yes, we have a lot of different, incentives in Europe. The problem, I would say, from a European perspective, is that we have many, not only 27, but we also can add on different regions. So we have a problem that I think that I need to focus on. And together with my, my different governments around Europe on how to harmonize this, to actually get the scale, to get the business model in this.
Absolutely. Maybe just two pieces. I think you said it already. I think, when when I look at how to move this forward, the, the society will want to make sure that we offer things at affordable prices. So if we don't have enough innovation and technology in order to keep the cost under control, this will not get a very good reception, in my opinion, and it will be difficult to move people along. And the second piece is convenience, where if it becomes too difficult in order to do the things, it will also not happen. So those are two things that we can use in order to incentivize people and to get society along with us, making sure we have enough innovation and technology to make it affordable. And secondly, make it convenient enough that you don't need to take your bottle or your boots, right? Have a mailing system or something like this, or have collection points and things like this.
Yeah, I was just add to Alfred's point that, you know, what the government can help is, one is on the recycling program we talked about. The other is on innovation because there are many companies that, is very creative, in material science to try to help in breaking down the used materials and then reconstruct them into high performance materials. Right. We sometimes have this, what do you what do you call it? The bad reputation. That. Okay, the reused plastic is a lower quality last, you know, shorter. And it's just not very, very good. But if with better innovation, you can actually make it just as functional and high performing, and then it solves that problem as well. But the, the, this area, if, I think the government can provide suitable incentives to encourage, such innovation to happen by I don't know whether it's funding or grants, or some other forms that would be very useful.
Yeah. Tax incentives maybe. Okay. I want to come to the audience and and take some questions. I'm giving you fair warning. I'm going to ask one more question of Commissioner Roswell, and then we'll come to the audience. So I just want to kind of get into a little bit of a dynamic. I'm hearing between you and Alfred on competitiveness. So coming back to the recycling sector, securing the competitiveness will be key to meeting the circularity targets. In Europe, how do you think about supporting Europe's recycling sector and how would a treaty help to address competitiveness concerns? That I'm sure European firms have.
No like Alfred's.
Thank you. No, but I think it's been said already, and I tried to say it in the beginning. I mean, the treaty is important because it's important for our oceans. Our the pollution is, is is terrible and it's growing. But the other thing is also that industry wants predictability and knowing what are we going to do. So I think it would be beneficial, if you may say so. When it comes to recycling industry, the plastic recycling industry in Europe is in a crisis due to a lot of reasons. And as I say, we are trying to move to a more circular circularity in Europe, a competitive circularity and putting forward Circular Economy Act later this year. But what I saw during last year, where you know this better than me for a long time, that we need to act faster when it comes to plastic recycling. Because if we don't do that, then we will don't have a recycling industry in Europe, and that will be very bad for our circularity because plastic is everywhere and it's good if it's good plastic and all the all the hours, as you said. So what we did before Christmas was that we put forward the first package on circularity, trying to address the issues that the industry has. One thing is a little bit on the links that we said earlier on on deciding, and that will be because we're working a lot with simplification and that defining what is the endo waste and criteria or standard for that in Europe. That would be helpful for the industry that because today it's a different way wherever you are. The other thing, what has been raised very often from the industry and you can tell more about this, of course, is the unfair competition that we see from the overflow of plastic coming into Europe. That is not always the same, same standards in, in as in Europe. So we, we are proposing a new custom code. And then the third thing and this I know, you know, is, is also adding on that we can use chemical recycling in and that is also something that would give predictability for the industry to know. Yes, you can invest in this. Yes, you can use that in, in other qualification. When we talk about single use plastics and so forth. So this is the first step. I'm not saying that that will help. Totally. Because we I see the crisis and we have also seen it in the in the last two years that the capacity in the, in the industry has has declined with 25% and a lot of bankruptcies around Europe. So, I mean, for me, this is really crucial. So that's a little bit what we're trying to do, not only for the we need the industry and it creates a lot of jobs, but also because it is important to get the circularity.
Okay. Let's take.
Can I just build.
No, no, I we're going to run out of time. And I want to make sure the audience has a chance to to ask a question or two. And also I want to make sure we, we hear from the president of Timor-Leste. So let me ask you to use the microphone, please, for the benefit of our live audience. Yes. We'll go right here. Quick, quickly introduce yourself and ask a question please.
Sure. My name is Ben van Beurden with Clarion, previously with shell. I think a lot of progress has been made in indeed closing the loop. Okay. Closing the loop and making sure that indeed plastics get collected. I see the two big steps that still need to happen is, first of all, we need to have the processing capacity to actually turn that again into virgin material or recycled material. There is, investment going to be needed. There's energy going to be involved that has to be done by an industry that is struggling in Europe, actually disappearing in Europe. So I was encouraged by your last remarks. We need to help the industry, one way or other to be able to do this economically. And then the other thing is, in the end, it's not so much in my mind anymore. The challenge of recycling and reusing it is actually making sure that we break that green premium. And in my mind, the only way you do that is to actually have a either a mandate or a policy or a cbam equivalent to, to, for, for plastics or materials to make sure that there is actually an incentive and economic model for people to do the reprocessing and recycling in an ever more difficult environment if you don't do it, a struggling industry in Europe is not going to be able to even survive, let alone thrive, in an environment like this.
Okay, any other questions? I can take one more and then we'll turn back to the panel. Okay. Anyone want to react to that?
Yeah, maybe I would. Thank you. Ben. I think it's spot on. Right. If you look at OMV, we see this as a growth opportunity. Actually, and, today we find a coalition of the willing because our efforts are recycling that we do is limited in, in, in relation to the total amount of materials. And you find people, customers, like the colleague here that are willing to do these kind of things. Right. But we have invested significantly. We actually start with technologies that allow us to reduce material use, to go to mono materials. We then have invested into a project in Indonesia to build up waste collection systems. We are building together with Inter CRO, Europe's biggest waste sorting plant, to create feedstock. We have about 200,000 tons of mechanical recycling capacity and since last year we also have 16,000 tons of chemical recycling capacity. People buy the stuff, but, what will determine the speed that this moves forward is regulation and helping this, helping to make it cost competitive. We will innovate what we can in order to bring costs down. There's a lot of room there. But we do need some regulation.
And thank you for quickly. Yes. Sorry. And I think that we totally agree. And what I can add on also to what the three things I put forward. Also, I think that we also restarted the Plastic Recycling Alliance because I think that I want to know also what is the bottlenecks, how can we help the industry with regulation that is not complicating overburdensome you know, that is always a complication for for a politician. But thank you.
Wonderful. Okay. At this point I would like to invite the Honorable Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta, the president of Timor-Leste, to make some remarks.
Good morning. Thank you. I start by introducing Timor-Leste. We are 25 year old country independent, restored in 2020, 2002. We are situated in a very fortunate geographic geographic area, bathed by the cold waters from the Pacific flow into the Indian Ocean and the island of Timor. Situated almost in the middle. Scientists from Conservation International. Many years ago, they did several months of research in the area. They concluded. And these are the scientists. The more or less has the richest biodiversity in the world, not in Southeast Asia, in the world, with several almost 600 species of fish in previously, the more well known was Raja Ampat in Indonesia. They had 280 species, Timor-Leste 580. Every year. September to December is the visitation to Timor-Leste from the whales. Blue whales coming from Tasmania elsewhere in the south, and they travel through the Western Australia and then stop several weeks months in the waters of Timor, very close to the shore, where they feed themselves. When millions and tens of millions of krill's. We have dugongs that are visibly seen. And then, of course, hundreds and hundreds of, of dolphins, and this is the Paradise that we want to protect, but not easy, a bit like the drug. You know, I used to work my second time as president. First time 2007 2012. When I finished 2012, Ban Ki moon asked me to mediate the conflict in West Africa. And I had to deal also with drug trafficking in the region. And what is the problem of drugs in West Africa? Is only transit transit from Latin America and then to Europe. So produce in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, cross the Atlantic and then store in West Africa and then to Europe. Two poles of the drug problem, one those who produce and those who at the end they like it too much. The Europeans and the consumers, they like it too much. So you have a market for the drugs. That's how I put it. As simple as that plastic. Well, today is no longer only the rich countries producing plastics. Malaysia, Indonesia, all the countries in South Thailand, everybody produce plastics. And those of us who buy food from all these countries, from toothpaste to shampoo to soaps to noodles and whatever else they are. Plastic is not not only what you go take the bags, plastic bags to the market, but everything that you, you consume and, and the irony, the travesty of all of this is that we have to pay for the harmful plastic that we have to buy, because we need all these things. So there has to be a treaty, and, there has to be tax on those who continue to produce this nefarious plastic that are dumped into. Way back when I was foreign minister, my salary was very small, $700 a month, but I would set aside $200 a month and I every Sunday, I mobilize kids in my neighborhood. These families are very big. I give only $1 to a kid five years old till 11. But you know many families. They have ten kids, seven kids. So they go home with a lot of money. And so I would take them to the beach to pick up and clean the beach, educational to the children. But that's what I discovered because I didn't start looking at the plastic that we uncovered in a bit. But this is not even what we consume in Timor. Well, it dump in the ocean by some ocean liners. You know, they dump cheaper to dump in the Indian Ocean. Then you go to Singapore and then you have to pay you and so on. Or it comes by the the movement of the waves of the sea from another island to, to, Timor-Leste. So this is an extraordinary problem. So our commitment, Timor-Leste commitment is my commitment. Our government committed. We want the country to be plastic free. We already very successful. One of the best, the best agro-forestry program anywhere in the world is in my country with a program called weed. One seed. We planted seven, now 800,000 trees. Each one is tagged. It's not like many countries say we planted 100 million because I've seen it claimed by one country, only 10% survive 800,000 trees. They attack carbon credit people from UK, from Netherlands they go to Timor-Leste to check. And we already issued carbon certificates and at least I think $4 million paid to the carbon certificates that return directly to the communities, thousands of families that benefit from the agroforestry. You cannot plant only trees because people don't eat trees and they need the food. So in the middle of forest, then, of course, food, a whole, complexity of food is, generated. So that's what we do. And yes, we have had some money from individuals in Australia particularly and elsewhere in European Union, impressed with our program took many years, but they gave $3 million for for us to expand the program now cover almost all the municipalities in the country. But we want to go further on the, the plastic free and carbon free country. So for that we need the the solidarity, the support of those with know how, with funding to support us. I thank you and God bless you all.
Thank you so much, Mr. President. I know we're out of time, and I think we might be losing the live audience, but let me just summarize. Will we have a plastics treaty? I'm hearing that it is first necessary. We need to have it. It must be complemented by national regulation. There's more that needs to be done at the national level. And we need to create aligned incentives for both producers and consumers. And with that very short summary, I want to thank everyone for coming. Thank our speakers. And thank, Mr. President for your remarks.
Thank you.