The Project

Plastics are a climate issue. But we don’t know how much they add to global heating. The Plastics & Climate Project is working to make sure that the impacts are measured, modeled, and mitigated. No other organization is filling this need.

Accomplishments

The first stage of our work resulted in the following:

Peer-reviewed paper - We examined close to 6,400 scientific papers, analyzed the findings, identified the data gaps, developed a research agenda to address the gaps, and recommended policies and actions. Frontiers in Environmental Science published our peer-reviewed paper, “The knowns and unknowns in our understanding of how plastics impact climate change: a systematic review.”

Summary report - With co-authors at Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), and the University of Wollongong, Australia, we published a summary of our peer-reviewed paper for non-technical audiences, "Plastics: Exposing their climate impacts - what we know, what we need to know, & recommendations for research and policy."

Literature Hub - The Hub is a free, ongoing repository of papers, reports, and articles on plastics and climate for researchers and anyone interested in the topic.

Communications & Outreach - We have shared our findings and elevated the issue of the uncounted climate impacts of plastics through speaking engagements, webinars, interviews, articles, and social media tailored to key audiences, including at the John's Hopkins Science & Diplomacy Summit, UN World Environment Day in Korea, the Sun Valley Forum, Harvard University’s Sustainability & Global Development Graduate Program, the Upstream’s Reuse Solutions Network, and Beyond Plastics ’ reporter briefing, among many others.

Science & Policy Influence - One of our greatest successes is that the IPCC plans to include our work in its forthcoming assessment report. (IPCC assessment reports are the UN’s comprehensive, periodic evaluation of climate change science and impacts.) We have also influenced delegates at the UN COP30 climate treaty negotiations, and collaborated with colleagues to ensure that the plastics & petrochemicals sector was included in the first International Conference Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF1). We also contributed strategic recommendations to the Government of Spain’s circular economy policies and actions.

What's Next?

Spotlighting the undercounted, significant, and growing climate impacts of plastics

by sharing the story, spurring the science, and influencing policy.

This is our focus now.

Now that we have illuminated the state of the science, we are sharing the story of the links between plastics and climate change, and the fact that the climate impacts are undercounted, significant, and growing.

We continue to communicate our findings and recommendations to scientists, policymakers, advocates, industry, investors, and educators. We are pushing for the scientific community to undertake critical research and data generation to ultimately be able to determine plastics' contribution to global temperature rise. We are collaborating with colleagues to ensure that plastics' climate impacts are incorporated into climate models, accounting and reporting, and in policies from the local to the international levels, including multilateral agreements.

A key event will be an international experts meeting in 2027 on the climate impacts of plastics. Chatham House will co-host, among others. Partners to date include the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights & Climate Change, Planet Tracker, and the Carbon Disclosure Project/Plastic Disclosure Project. Goals are to:

Gather researchers to update the state of the science, understand who is doing what, and coordinate on the research agenda to fill in data gaps
Create a researcher network
Launch development of accounting for & reporting on the uncounted impacts, i.e, for the Paris Agreement
Attract attention to the issue and affect policy