New compromise reached but no deal yet at plastic pollution talks
The new draft, issued by the talks chair after the original Thursday deadline passed, contains more than 100 unresolved passages of text but constitutes an 'acceptable basis for negotiation,' two sources from different governments told AFP.
Several environmental NGOs said the text still did not go far enough to protect human health and the environment. After three years of negotiations, nations seeking bold action to curb plastic waste were attempting to bridge gaps with a group led by oil-producing states.
Talks chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso issued his revised draft after countries strongly rejected his earlier version on Wednesday, sending the talks into disarray. The Ecuadoran diplomat spent Thursday in intense consultations with multiple regional groups, producing a new draft aimed at appeasing both major blocs.
The High Ambition Coalition – which includes the European Union, Britain, Canada, and many African and Latin American countries – wants language on reducing plastic production and phasing out toxic chemicals used in plastics. The Like-Minded Group, made up mostly of oil-producing states including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia, Iran, and Malaysia, is pushing for the treaty to focus mainly on waste management.
The new text 'is far from what is needed to end plastic pollution,' Panama's negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey said, but 'it can be the springboard to get there, if we sharpen it in a next round.' Another diplomatic source called it 'an acceptable basis for negotiation.'
A total of 185 countries have been meeting since August 5 at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. Five previous rounds of talks over three years have failed to produce a treaty.
The plastic pollution problem is so widespread that microplastics have been found on the highest mountain peaks, in the deepest ocean trenches, and throughout the human body. On current trends, annual production of fossil-fuel-based plastics is set to nearly triple by 2060 to 1.2 billion tonnes, while waste will exceed one billion tonnes, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
With 15 million tonnes of plastic dumped in the ocean every minute, French President Emmanuel Macron urged swift action. 'We need to have a coherent global treaty. We can't do it on our own,' said Kenya's Environment Minister Deborah Barasa, a member of the High Ambition Coalition. She said nations could strike a treaty now and finalize details later.
IPEN, a global network working to limit toxic chemicals, warned the level of ambition in the new text 'cannot become the new normal for these negotiations.' The World Wide Fund for Nature said the compromise had resulted in a draft 'so inconsequential, it cannot hope to tackle the crisis in any meaningful way.'
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