Peer-reviewed research, reports, and policy briefs from the Project.
We now know that plastics, from their start to their waste, are polluting the oceans and also fueling the climate crisis. This new research makes it clear: every stage of the plastic lifecycle emits greenhouse gases, and plastics may undermine the ocean's ability to store carbon. The evidence is growing, but so are the gaps in our understanding — and we have to fill them.
Report
What we know, what we need to know, & recommendations for research and policy
This is the first report to comprehensively assess the existing peer-reviewed data on the climate impacts of plastics. The report analyzes existing peer-reviewed data, identifies critical data gaps, lays out a roadmap for continued research, and recommends policies and actions to support that research and to include plastics' climate impacts in relevant models, scenarios, accounting, and analyses.
Peer-Reviewed Paper
Frontiers in Environmental Science, April 2025
Lead author Dr. Alice (Xia) Zhu and Holly Kaufman. Published in Frontiers in Environmental Science. The first systematic review to comprehensively examine what peer-reviewed science tells us — and does not yet tell us — about the full scope of plastics' climate impacts.
Briefer for COP-30: Including the undercounted climate impacts of plastics in the UN Climate Regime
Read the Policy Brief ↗