Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

Guest blog by  Craig Boljkovac,  Independent International Environmental Consultant,  Senior Advisor, and Lecturer Basel/Stockholm Convention Regional Centres (Asia-Pacific)/Tsinghua University School of Environment · Part-time . Recently, there have been some significant developments regarding negotiations, convened by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) for a global plastics treaty. This is the second of two brief blogs bringing things up-to-date. The first covered the one-day INC 5.3 held in Geneva, in early February, 2026. As mentioned in Part 1, a new INC President, Ambassador Julio Cordano of Chile, was elected at INC 5.3 (along with a new rapporteur and Bureau member representing SIDs countries). He immediately got down to work, sending an introductory letter to delegations and stakeholders shortly after his election. While his “campaign” speeches before INC 5.3 were short on specifics, his first letter to delegations (dated 19 February, 2026) was a good start. ...

Craig Boljkovac, Independent International Environmental Consultant,  Senior Advisor, and Lecturer Basel/Stockholm Convention Regional Centres (Asia-Pacific)/Tsinghua University School of Environment · Part-time Recently, there have been some significant developments regarding negotiations, convened by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) for a global plastics treaty. This is the first of two brief blogs bringing things up-to-date.  A brief, one-day session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC 5.3) took place on 7 February 2026 in Geneva (back-to-back with the clearly stalled negotiations to initiate an of the Intergovernmental Science and Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution ( ISP-CWP) – more on that in a separate blog). To briefly summarize, INC 5.3 was held due to the resignation of the President of the negotiations, an Ambassador Luis Vayas Valdivieso from Ecuador who unfortunately struggled to find a way forward for the negotiations. The sess...