“The inability to reach an agreement in Geneva must be a wakeup call for the world: ending plastic pollution means confronting fossil fuel interests head on,” said Graham Forbes, Global Plastics Campaign Lead at Greenpeace USA.
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A meeting that was supposed to culminate in a global treaty to curb plastic pollution long in the making has ended without a deal.
Representatives from 184 countries met in Geneva, Switzerland, this week to resolve outstanding disagreements on capping plastic production, managing plastic products and hazardous chemicals, and financing to support the implementation of the treaty in developing countries. It was supposed to be the second and final session of the fifth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), after a treaty failed to materialize at last year’s talks in Busan, South Korea.
In a world grappling with an escalating plastic pollution crisis, this week’s talks were seen as a crucial opportunity to forge a global treaty aimed at curbing plastic production and consumption. But once again, nations walked away empty-handed.
On Wednesday, more than 100 countries had rejected a draft treaty, calling it “unambitious” and “inadequate”, and a “gift to polluters.” The text failed to cover the full life of plastics and only included voluntary measures that environmentalists and many countries argued do would little to halt plastic production. Articles on health and product phase-outs were also dropped.
Senior Attorney at Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) Melissa Blue Sky called the draft “abysmal” and an “enormous step backwards for people, the process and the planet” that fails to cover the full life of plastics and ignores calls for both mandatory and voluntary measures.
The INC was set up in response to a UN Environment Assembly resolution in March 2022 requesting the adopt a legally binding global plastics treaty by the end of 2024. According to the resolution, the instrument could include “both binding and voluntary approaches, based on a comprehensive approach that addresses the full life cycle of plastic.”
It remains unclear when and how the negotiations will continue.
‘Deny, Distract, Derail’
Environmental groups denounced the heavy presence of fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists.
A CIEL investigation earlier this month revealed that 234 lobbyists from the oil, petrochemical and plastics industries were at the talks in Geneva, outnumbering the combined delegations of all 27 European Union member states and far exceeding the number of people attending with the delegations of scientists and Indigenous peoples. 19 lobbyists were part of the national delegations of Egypt, Kazakhstan, China, Iran, Chile and the Dominican Republic, the investigation also found.
“We have decades of evidence showing the fossil fuel and chemical industries’ playbook: deny, distract, derail. Fossil fuel companies are central to plastic production, as over 99 percent of plastics are derived from chemicals sourced from fossil fuels… After decades of obstruction in the climate negotiations, why would anyone think that they would suddenly show up in good faith in the Plastics Treaty talks?” said Ximena Banegas, CIEL Global Plastics and Petrochemicals Campaigner.
Reactions Pour In
Countries
Jessika Roswall, European Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and Competitive Circular Economy
We came to Geneva to secure a global plastics treaty because we know the stakes could not be higher. Plastic pollution is one of the defining crises of our age, and our responsibility to act is clear. 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.
The European Union will continue to push for a stronger, binding agreement that safeguards public health, protects our environment, and builds a clean, competitive, and circular economy. We do this not only for ourselves, but for the generations yet to come.
Cuba
We have missed a historic opportunity but we have to keep going and act urgently. The planet and present and future generations need this treaty.
Tuvalu
For our islands this means that without global cooperation and state action, millions of tonnes of plastic waste will continue to be dumped in our oceans, affecting our ecosystem, food security, livelihood and culture.
Colombia
The negotiations were consistently blocked by a small number of states who simply don’t want an agreement.
Environmental Groups
Graham Forbes, Global Plastics Campaign Lead at Greenpeace USA
The inability to reach an agreement in Geneva must be a wakeup call for the world: ending plastic pollution means confronting fossil fuel interests head on. The vast majority of governments want a strong agreement, yet a handful of bad actors were allowed to use process to drive such ambition into the ground. We cannot continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. The time for hesitation is over.
The plastics crisis is accelerating, and the petrochemical industry is determined to bury us for short-term profits. Now is not the time to blink. Now is the time for courage, resolve and perseverance. The call from all of civil society is clear: we need a strong, legally binding treaty that cuts plastic production, protects human health, provides robust and equitable financing, and ends the plastic pollution from extraction to disposal. And world leaders must listen. The future of our health and planet depends on it.
Steve Tren, CEO & Founder at the Environmental Justice Foundation
The global community demands far stronger action than that proposed in the wholly inadequate, compromised text presented by the Chair to delegates in the early hours this morning.
But let’s be clear: this failure does not reflect the vision, ambition and efforts of the overwhelming majority of nations that came to Geneva ready to act. It was the work of a small but powerful group of oil and plastic-producing nations, aided by an army of industry lobbyists putting short-term profits ahead of the health and well-being of our global community. This minority group of interests blocked binding targets, refused to curb plastic production and used the negotiations to strip away the ambition our world desperately needs. But we must not be fooled into thinking that such a weak Treaty is an option, nor that there are no alternatives.
We call for, demand, a new negotiation, chaired with the vigour and vision that reflects the high ambition of the Small Island Developing States, the vast majority of African nations, the Asian States that have repeatedly called for better and more; which responds to the high ambition from Latin America; which reflects the clamour for action in Europe and from the EU and across the overwhelming majority of nations globally. Now is the time for leadership, multilateralism and action. We call on States to redouble their efforts to demand and then deliver a legally binding plastics Treaty that is fit for purpose and will effectively combat the plastics crisis.
Alejandra Warren, Executive Director at Plastic Free Future
At the end of the day, it came down to a handful of imperialistic petrostates blocking the process and sentencing the future of humanity and all life on the planet. But this is not the end. We will continue to fight their colonial, oppressive and capitalistic systems to expose the greed and ignorance behind their cowardly decisions. And just like we have in the past, they can count on us to forever be the thorn in their side.
David Azoulay, Head of Delegation, Environmental Health Program Director at the Center for International Environmental Law
Make no mistake, INC-5.2 has been an abject failure. When faced with a failure of this magnitude, it’s essential to learn from it. 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 finalize 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.
While the negotiations will continue, they will fail if the process does not change. When a process is broken, as this one is, it is essential for countries to identify the necessary solutions to fix it and then do it. 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.
Sam Cossar-Gilbert, Economic Justice and Resisting Neoliberalism Programme Co-Coordinator at Friends of the Earth International
As in previous sessions, we saw the majority of governments support the reduction of plastic production, regulation of chemicals of concern and a new financial mechanism to enable action in the Global South. This reality wasn’t reflected in the draft text as low-ambition countries, alongside the fossil fuel and plastics industries they prop up, actively blocked real solutions. The movement to break free from plastic will continue to demand action and system change. Affected communities deserve justice and a strong treaty that will actually deliver change.
Dianna Cohen, Co-Founder & CEO at Plastic Pollution Coalition
We walk away from Geneva knowing that the fight for a strong plastics treaty does not end here. In the face of industry manipulation and the negotiating process caving to the fossil fuel wishlist, a stronger majority of ambitious countries emerged and didn’t back down despite the obstruction of a few petrostates. The empowered and aligned movement of scientists, frontline activists, and civil society created through this years-long negotiation process is committed to fulfill the mandate for global action to end plastic pollution. As a global community, we will continue working to create the nontoxic and plastic-free world we want to live in.
Renée Sharp, director of plastic and petrochemical advocacy at the Natural Resources Defense Council
No treaty is better than a weak treaty that creates an illusion of progress and could discourage stronger action. We applaud the many countries that resisted the pressure to agree to a treaty that would not protect our health, environment or communities from plastic pollution. Now it is up to the majority of countries wanting global action to find a way forward towards a strong treaty in future negotiations.
Vishvaja Sambath, Environmental Health Researcher at the Centre for Financial Accountability
After investing three years and extensive resources to reach consensus, we leave empty-handed. The Chair’s latest drafts represent a full-blown surrender to petroleum corporations and petrostates. Communities suffer daily from emissions by the petrochemical industries supplying plastic’s raw materials, yet a handful of parties at negotiations prioritized profit over people and planet—systematically blocking measures threatening their interests.
Having no treaty at the end of this intensive 2 weeks is a setback, not failure. A treaty serving petrostates instead of our planet would be true defeat. Now, with negotiations extended, we must secure a strong agreement addressing environmental, health, climate, and intergenerational justice. The clock is ticking: every delay multiplies harm inflicted on people and the Earth.
Pui Yi Wong, Researcher at Basel Action Network (Malaysia)
This process of negotiation at the plastics treaty INCs is fundamentally flawed. The same arguments have been repeated for more than two years, with no convergence in sight. We should not waste any more precious time and resources doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. The process must be changed, including the consideration of voting for decision-making. The plastic crisis is worsening every second. Importantly for the Global South, millions of kilograms of plastic waste continue to be exported to low-income countries, overwhelming their domestic waste management systems. Several Global South countries had called for prior notification and consent for all plastic waste exports in the treaty agreement, but their demands had been ignored by other member states. This, coupled with no controls on the transparency of chemicals nor planned phase-out of hazardous chemicals, exposes recipient countries and communities to serious harms.
Rico Euripidou, Chemicals and Campaign Support, groundWork South Africa (South Africa)
Plastic harms health along its whole life cycle. In particular, the chemicals added to give plastics their properties are where the scientific evidence of the health harms of plastics is strongest. To address the most harmful of these chemicals routinely added to plastics and plastics products, traceability and tracking of these chemicals must be a mandatory requirement alongside elements to measure the health harms in the future treaty.
Lara Iwanicki, Strategy and Advocacy Director in Brazil at Oceana
Once again, a handful of obstructionist states have hijacked the plastics treaty talks, leaving the world drowning in plastic. Plastic is everywhere. It’s choking our oceans, melting out of sea ice, and sitting at the deepest point of the seafloor. Ambitious countries and businesses do not need to wait for a treaty to reduce their plastic use and find alternative packaging solutions. Collective action can advance global cooperation. The oceans can’t wait any longer; action is needed now to tackle the plastic pollution crisis
Featured image: UNEP via Flickr.
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