Plastic pollution treaty talks end without an agreement

Euronews

20 hours ago

Negotiators working on a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution won't reach an agreement in Geneva on Friday.
They were meeting for the 11th day at the United Nations office in Geneva to try to complete a landmark treaty to end the plastic pollution crisis but remained deadlocked over whether the treaty should reduce the exponential growth of plastic production and put global, legally binding controls on toxic chemicals used to make plastics.
This round of negotiations was meant to be the last, producing the first legally binding treaty on plastic pollution. But now delegates are leaving without a treaty after talks collapsed, just like they did at the meeting in South Korea last year.
Nations deeply disappointed to leave Geneva without a treaty
Representatives of Norway, Australia, Tuvalu and other nations said they were deeply disappointed to be leaving Geneva without a treaty.
"We came to Geneva to secure a global plastics treaty because we know the stakes could not be higher," European Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and Competitive Circular Economy, Jessika Roswall said in a post on social media.
"While the latest text on the table does not yet meet all our ambitions, it is a step forward—and the perfect must not be the enemy of the good."
Roswall added that the EU will continue to push for a stronger, binding agreement.
Saudi Arabia said both drafts lacked balance, and Saudi and Kuwaiti negotiators said the latest proposal takes other states' views more into account and addresses plastic production, which they consider outside the scope of the treaty.
No further action on the latest draft text
Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the chair of the negotiating committee, wrote and presented two drafts of treaty text in Geneva based on the views expressed by nations at the talks.
That draft, released early Friday, did not include a limit on plastic production but recognised that current levels of production and consumption are 'unsustainable' and global action is needed. New language had been added to say these levels exceed current waste management capacities and are projected to increase further, 'thereby necessitating a coordinated global response to halt and reverse such trends.'
The representatives from 184 countries did not agree to use either one as the basis for their negotiations. Valdivieso said Friday morning, as the delegates reconvened in the assembly hall, that no further action is being proposed at this stage on the latest draft.
Talks in Geneva have been an "abject failure", David Azoulay, health programme director and head of the delegation for the Center for International Environmental Law, said in a statement.
"In the final days of the negotiations, we have clearly seen what many of us have known for some time - some countries did not come here to finalise a text, they came here to do the opposite: block any attempt at advancing a viable treaty.
"It's impossible to find a common ground between those who are interested in protecting the status quo and the majority who are looking for a functional treaty that can be strengthened over time."
What happens now?
Delegates are still meeting and have not decided on the next steps yet.
Azoulay said that, while negotiations will continue, they will fail again if solutions aren't identified and the process doesn't change.
"We need a restart, not a repeat performance. Countries that want a treaty must now leave this process and form a treaty of the willing. And that process must include options for voting that deny the tyranny of consensus we have watched play out here."