Latest news with #globalagreement
WIRED
4 days ago
- Politics
- WIRED
UN Plastics Treaty Talks Once Again End in Failure
Aug 16, 2025 7:00 AM Procedural hurdles yet again foil progress on a global agreement to end plastic pollution. This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Diplomats from around the world concluded nine days of talks in Geneva—plus a marathon overnight session that lasted into the early hours of Friday—with no agreement on a global plastics treaty. During a closing plenary that started on Friday at 6:30 am, more than 15 hours after it was originally scheduled to begin, nearly all countries opposed an updated draft of the United Nations treaty that was put forward by the negotiating committee chair, the Ecuadorian diplomat Luis Vayas Valdivieso. Many of their delegates said the text did not reflect their mandate under a UN Environment Assembly resolution to 'end plastic pollution' by addressing the 'full life cycle' of plastics. 'We are truly sad to say that we will not have a treaty to end plastic pollution here in Geneva,' the head negotiator for Norway, Andreas Bjelland Erikse, told the chair. Valdivieso wrapped up the meeting just after 9 am with the promise that they would continue at a later date. The decision ends a contentious week and a half of discussions during the 'resumed' fifth session of negotiations over a United Nations plastics treaty, which started in Geneva on August 4. Delegates had arrived in the city hoping to finalize a treaty by Thursday, having already overrun their original deadline to complete the agreement by the end of 2024. Signs of a logjam were apparent even within the first few days of the talks, however, as countries hewed to the same red lines they'd stuck to during previous negotiations. A so-called 'like-minded group' of oil-producing countries said it would not accept legally binding obligations and opposed a wide range of provisions that other nations said were essential, including controls on new plastic production, as well as mandatory disclosures and phaseouts of hazardous chemicals used in plastics. During a plenary on August 9, three observers independently told Grist that the negotiations felt like Groundhog Day , as countries reiterated familiar talking points. A norm around consensus-based decisionmaking discouraged compromise from all countries, though the like-minded group—which includes Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, among other countries—was particularly intransigent and understood it could simply block proposals rather than shift its positions. Instead of whittling down a draft of the treaty that had been prepared late last year during the previous meeting in Busan, South Korea, delegates added hundreds of suggestions to it, placing a deal further from reach. Over the course of the Geneva talks, delegates rejected two new drafts of the treaty prepared by Valdivieso: one released on Wednesday, which was so objectionable that countries said it was 'repulsive' and lacked 'any demonstrable value,' and the most recent one published just hours before Friday's 6:30 am plenary. Many expressed their preference to revert back to the Busan draft as a basis for future discussions. Despite Friday's outcome, the plastics treaty does not yet appear to be dead. Virtually all countries expressed an interest in continued negotiations—the European Union delegate Jessika Roswall said she would not accept 'a stillborn treaty'—and many used their mic time during the closing plenary to remind others of what's at stake. PICTURE Caption: Tuvalu's delegate, Pepetua Election Latasi, during a plastics treaty plenary meeting in Geneva. Credit: Joseph Winters/Grist 'We cannot ignore the gravity of the situation,' a negotiator from Madagascar said. 'Every day, our oceans and ecosystems and communities are suffering from the consequences of our inability to make decisive and unified actions.' Tuvalu's delegate, Pepetua Election Latasi, said failing to enact a treaty means that 'millions of tons of plastic waste will continue to be dumped in our oceans, affecting our ecosystem, food security, livelihoods, and culture.' Still, without a change in the negotiations' format—particularly around decisionmaking—it's unclear whether further discussions will be fruitful. The norm around 'consensus-based decisionmaking means the threat of a vote can't be used to nudge obstinate countries away from their red lines; unless decisionmaking by a majority vote is introduced, then this dynamic is unlikely to change. 'This meeting proved that consensus is dead,' said Bjorn Beeler, executive director of the International Pollutants Elimination Network, a coalition of health and environmental organizations. 'The problem is not going away.' Why is it so hard to make progress on a plastics treaty? Procedural rules for the plastics treaty negotiations say that, for substantive issues, delegates 'shall make every effort' to reach agreement by consensus. Otherwise they can vote by a two-thirds majority, but only as a 'last resort.' When delegates sought to clarify these rules during the second round of talks in 2023, there was so much disagreement that it sank several days of negotiation. The result is that delegates have defaulted to consensus for everything, fearful of broaching the subject and losing even more of their limited negotiating time. Yet consensus-based decisionmaking is also one of the main reasons that the negotiations have gone so slowly: Oil-producing countries have used these rules to their advantage to either stall or water down interim agreements at each round of negotiations, frustrating progress even when they're greatly outnumbered. Other nonprofits and advocacy groups staged several silent protests during the Geneva talks raising this same point, displaying signs reading, 'Consensus kills ambition.' Senimili Nakora, one of Fiji's delegates, said during the closing plenary that 'consensus is worth seeking if it moves us forward, not if it stalls the process.' Switzerland's negotiator, Felix Wertli, said that 'this process needs a timeout,' and that 'another similar meeting may not bring the breakthrough and ambition that is needed.' Other countries raised broader concerns about 'the process' by which negotiations had proceeded. Meetings had been 'nontransparent,' 'opaque,' and 'ambiguous,' they said during the plenary, likely referring to unclear instructions they had received from the secretariat, the bureaucratic body that organizes the negotiations. Inger Andersen, the UN Environment Programme's executive director, told reporters on Friday that it at least had been helpful to hear countries more clearly articulate their red lines. 'Everyone has to understand that this work will not stop, because plastic pollution will not stop.' PICTURE Caption: Observers sit outside the assembly hall at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, waiting into the early hours of the morning for plenary to start. Credit: Joseph Winters/Grist The plastics industry, which has opposed controlling plastic production and phasing out groups of hazardous chemicals, said it would continue to back a treaty that 'keeps plastics in the economy and out of the environment.' Marco Mensink, council secretary of the International Council of Chemical Associations, said in a statement: 'While not concluding a global agreement to end plastic pollution is a missed opportunity, we will continue to support efforts to reach an agreement that works for all nations and can be implemented effectively.' Environmental groups, scientists, and frontline organizations were disappointed to leave Geneva without an ambitious treaty. They said it would have been worse, however, if countries had decided to compromise on key provisions such as human health and a 'just transition' for those most likely to be affected by changes to global recycling and waste management policies, including waste pickers. Under the circumstances, they applauded delegates for not agreeing to the final version of the chair's text. 'I'm so happy that a strong treaty was prioritized over a weak treaty,' said Jo Banner, cofounder of the US-based organization The Descendants Project, which advocates to preserve the health and culture of the descendants of enslaved Black people in of a swath of Louisiana studded by petrochemical facilities. 'It feels like our voices have been heard,' added Cheyenne Rendon, a senior policy officer for the US nonprofit Society of Native Nations, which has advocated that the treaty include specific language on Indigenous peoples' rights and the use of Indigenous science. PICTURES (x2) Caption: Protestors gather outside the Palais des Nations in Geneva, during talks for a global plastics treaty. Credit: Joseph Winters/Grist Caption: Advocacy groups call for delegates to make decisions by voting, not consensus, at plastics treaty negotiations. Credit: Joseph Winters/Grist By contrast, observers' voices were literally not heard during the final moments of the concluding plenary in Geneva. After more than two hours of statements from national delegations, Valdivieso turned the mic over to a parade of young attendees, Indigenous peoples, waste pickers, and others who had been present throughout the week and a half of talks. But only one speaker—from the Youth Plastic Action Network—was able to give a statement before the United States and Kuwait asked the chair to cut them off and conclude the meeting. It is now up to the plastics treaty secretariat to set a date and time for another round of negotiations, which are not likely to happen until next year. In the meantime, all eyes will be on the UN Environment Assembly meeting in December, where Andersen is expected to deliver a report on the negotiations' progress—or lack thereof—and which could present an opportunity for the like-minded countries to lower the ambition of the treaty's mandate: the statement spelling out what the treaty is trying to achieve. Some environmental groups fear that Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and others will try to change the mandate so that it no longer refers to the 'full life cycle' of plastics, but just plastic pollution—thus turning the treaty into a waste management agreement rather than one that addresses the full suite of plastics' harms to health and the environment, including during the material's production. Banner said she doesn't feel defeated; in fact, she's 'more passionate than ever' to keep fighting for legally binding restrictions on the amount of plastic the world makes. 'I'm planning to survive,' she added, and to do that, 'we have got to stop the production of plastic.'
The Verge
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Verge
A treaty to end plastic pollution is still out of reach — that's not necessarily a bad thing
The nations of the world have been on the precipice of reaching a global agreement to curb plastic pollution for a few years now. Delegates from 184 governments met in Geneva this month to try to hammer out a final treaty, but in the end, they walked away without a deal. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Delegates have missed their 2024 deadline, which was extended to this round of talks. But no deal is better than a bad deal, environmental advocates say. The big schism was over whether the treaty should phase out the use of hazardous chemicals in manufacturing and set limits to how much plastic is actually produced. Countries where plastics and fossil fuels are big business — including the US and Russia — would rather just focus on managing and recycling waste, leading to the deadlock. 'We need to address unhinged plastic production.' 'We need to address unhinged plastic production,' Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, a delegate from Panama, said during a Thursday press conference before negotiations came to a close. 'We're not here to simply get to a deal. We are here to end plastic pollution.' Plastic production has exploded since the 1950s, reaching 475 metric megatons a year by 2022. That's the year that United Nations member states committed to developing a legally-binding agreement on plastic pollution. Plastics are made with fossil fuels and more than 16,000 different chemicals that leach into the environment and wind up in our air and our bodies; that's why health advocates are calling on policymakers to pump the brakes. The industry has also been facing increasing heat for peddling recycling as a solution. California filed suit against ExxonMobil last year over what it calls a 'campaign of deception' about plastic recycling. It's estimated that less than 10 percent of plastic waste has ever been recycled. The material is difficult and costly to rehash, and even products made with recycled plastic typically still need to be reinforced with freshly-made plastic. Recycling, as a result, can fuel more production, says Mohamed Kamal, a waste management expert and executive director of the Egypt-based foundation Greenish who attended the talks in Geneva. 'Recycling is a reaction to the generation of waste. It is not a preventive method,' Kamal tells The Verge. 'You would want to prevent yourself from getting injured. You wouldn't want to get injured and then react every time.' A 'high ambition coalition' of more than 70 nations, led by Norway and Rwanda, wants to go farther by addressing the entire lifecycle of the material, including restraining plastic production. Details on the next round of negotiations haven't been decided yet, but they could take place later this year or next year. 'I feel more emotional than I have in the previous negotiations,' says Jo Banner, who co-founded the nonprofit The Descendants Project with her sister and has attended all of the plastics treaty negotiations to advocate for their community in Louisiana. It's been nicknamed 'cancer alley' since it's considered a 'frontline' community to the problem. There are around 200 industrial plants in the area connected to petrochemical and plastics production. Air pollution in Louisiana has been linked to higher cancer rates, particularly in neighborhoods with a higher proportion of Black residents and with higher poverty rates. A treaty that doesn't pay any attention to the health risks caused by plastic production wouldn't begin to help her community heal, Banner says. 'We are willing to go without [a treaty] than to have something that will continue to harm us,' she says. 'I know it may seem like, in many ways, it is a failure. But ultimately … people from the frontline have been able to be on a global stage intervening for their communities.' Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Justine Calma Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Climate Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Environment Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Health Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Policy Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Science
News.com.au
5 days ago
- Politics
- News.com.au
Global plastic pollution treaty talks in a 'haze'
Countries scrambled Thursday to secure a global agreement on tackling plastic pollution as 10-day talks headed towards overtime, with one diplomat saying negotiators were in a "haze" on how to find common ground. After three years of negotiations, nations wanting bold action to turn the tide on plastic garbage were trying to build last-minute bridges with a group of oil-producing states. As the hours ticked away, talks chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso was doing the rounds between regional delegations at the United Nations' headquarters in Geneva, trying to stitch together a consensus agreement following a botched attempt on Wednesday. "We are in a complete haze. We've got the impression something is missing," a diplomatic source in one of the regional delegations told AFP. The talks are due to end Thursday, and technically a plenary session bringing all 185 negotiating countries together at the UN Palais des Nations must open before midnight (2200 GMT) to be valid. That meeting, however, has been repeatedly postponed due to deadlock since being first scheduled to start at 1300 GMT. - Elusive middle ground - "We need to have a coherent global treaty. We can't do it on our own," said Environment Minister Deborah Barasa of Kenya, a member of the High Ambition Coalition seeking aggressive action on plastic waste. Barasa told AFP that nations could strike a treaty now, then work out some of the finer details down the line. "We need to come to a middle ground," she said. "And then we can have a step-wise approach in terms of building up this treaty... and ending plastic pollution." "We need to leave with the treaty," she added. Back-to-back regional and cross-regional groups huddled in meetings throughout Thursday. The High Ambition Coalition, which includes the European Union, Britain and Canada, and many African and Latin American countries, wants to see language on reducing plastic production and the phasing out of toxic chemicals used in plastics. A cluster of mostly oil-producing states calling themselves the Like-Minded Group -- including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia, Iran, and Malaysia -- want the treaty to focus primarily on waste management. One senior Western negotiator, who was among those who skewered the previous draft, told AFP: "It's all up in the air." - Macron's call to action The plastic pollution problem is so ubiquitous that microplastics have been found on the highest mountain peaks, in the deepest ocean trench and scattered throughout almost every part of the human body. On current trends, annual production of fossil-fuel-based plastics will 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 asked: "What are we waiting for to act?" "I urge all states gathered in Geneva to adopt an agreement that truly meets the scale of this environmental and public health emergency," he posted on X. Vayas, the Ecuadoran politician leading the talks, produced a draft treaty text on Wednesday that was immediately shredded to bits as one country after another branded it unacceptable -- high-ambition and like-minded nations included, with both feeling his attempts at a convergence document was shorn of anything they really wanted. - Tension as clock ticks - From here, "it's very simple: there are only two scenarios: there's bad and very bad -- and a lot of ugliness in between," Aleksandar Rankovic from The Common Initiative think-tank told AFP. "The bad scenario is that countries adopt a very bad treaty. The very bad is that they don't agree on anything, and they either try to reconvene" or the treaty is "kept in limbo for a long time -- so practically abandoned," he said. Greenpeace delegation chief Graham Forbes told AFP: "It is very tense. "These final hours are critically important. We need to see meaningful obligations in this text -- and now is the moment to do it."
