Once Again, Oil States Thwart Agreement on Plastics

Summary

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 a.m. — more than 15 hours after it was originally scheduled to begin — nearly all countries opposed an updated draft of the U.N. treaty that was put forward by the negotiating committee chair, the Ecuadorian diplomat Luis Vayas Valdivieso. Many of the delegates said the text did not reflect their mandate under a U.N. 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 a.m. 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 U.N. 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-...