World plastic pollution treaty talks collapse with no deal

GENEVA - Talks aimed at striking a landmark global treaty on plastic pollution fell apart on Aug 15 as countries failed to find consensus on how the world should tackle the ever-growing scourge.

Negotiators from 185 nations worked beyond Aug 14’s deadline and through the night in an ultimately futile search for common ground.

A large bloc wants bold action such as curbing plastic production, while a smaller clutch of oil-producing states want to focus more narrowly on waste management.

The stalemate was a resounding failure for the environment and for international diplomacy at a time when its frailties are in the spotlight.

Countries voiced anger and despair as the talks unravelled, but said they wanted future negotiations – despite six rounds of talks over three years now having failed to find agreement.

“We have missed a historic opportunity but we have to keep going and act urgently,” said Cuba.

Colombia added: “The negotiations were consistently blocked by a small number of states which simply don’t want an agreement.”

Tuvalu, speaking for 14 Pacific small island developing states, said: “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.”

Looking the other way

The High Ambition Coalition, which includes the European Union, Britain and Canada, and many African and Latin American countries, wanted to see language on reducing plastic production and the phasing out of toxic chemicals used in plastics.

The cluster of mostly oil-producing states calling themselves the Like-Minded Group – including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia, Iran and Malaysia – want a much narrower remit.

These countries railed against the negotiations being based on the entire life cycle of plastic: from the petroleum-derived substance right through to waste.

“Our views were not reflected... without an agreed scope, this process cannot remain on the right track,” said Kuwait.

Bahrain said it wanted a treaty that “does not penalise developing countries for exploiting their own resources”.

France’s Ecological Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said “I am disappointed, and I am angry”, blaming a handful of countries “guided by short-term financial interests” for blocking an ambitious treaty.

“Oil-producing countries and their allies have chosen to look the other way,” she said.

Red lines fleshed out

The talks in Geneva – called after the collapse of the fifth and supposedly final round of talks in South Korea in late 2024 – opened on Aug 5.

With countries far apart, the talk’s chairman Luis Vayas Valdivieso produced two different draft texts on Aug 13 and early on Aug 15.

The first was immediately shredded by countries, but while the second gained some traction, by sunrise, the game was up.

He said the session had merely been adjourned rather than ended. He told AFP that countries and the secretariat “will be working to try to find a date and also a place” for resuming the talks.

The negotiations were hosted by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

UNEP chief Inger Andersen told AFP that the Geneva talks had fleshed out the deeper details of where countries’ red lines were.

“They’ve exchanged on these red lines amongst one another – that’s a very important step,” she said.

Bad actors

However, environmental non-governmental organisations warned that without radically changing the process to better reflect the majority view, future talks would hit the same dead end.

The Centre for International Environmental Law’s Mr David Azoulay said the talks had been an “abject failure” because some countries were out to “block any attempt at advancing a viable treaty”.

“We cannot continue to do the same thing and expect a different result,” said Greenpeace’s delegation head Graham Forbes, blaming “fossil fuel interests” and “a handful of bad actors” for exploiting the consensus-based process to skewer meaningful action.

The World Wide Fund for Nature said the talks exposed how consensus decision-making “had now “outplayed its role in international environmental negotiations”.

Dumped, burned and discarded

More than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced globally each year, half of which is for single-use items.

While 15 per cent of plastic waste is collected for recycling, only 9 per cent is actually recycled.

Nearly half, or 46 per cent, ends up in landfills, while 17 per cent is incinerated and 22 per cent is mismanaged and becomes litter.

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. AFP