Last week, the world has seen a new round of talks on the first-ever global treaty to curb plastic pollution, with officials gearing up for tough negotiations on whether to limit plastic production or focus only on waste management.
The third session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for an International Legally Binding Instrument on Plastic Pollution, including the Marine Environment (INC-3) will be held at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi, Kenya, from 13 to 19 November 2023, according to the schedule.
Officials involved in the negotiations have said that delegates will list policies and actions that might be considered, based on a "zero draft" text introduced last year, and debate which of those options should be included in what will eventually become a legally binding treaty by the end of 2024.
Andres Del Castillo, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and observer of the negotiations, said, "We are at a critical point in the process."
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, some 400 million tons of plastic waste are currently generated globally each year, less than 10 per cent of which is recycled, which has resulted in landfills being overwhelmed and the marine environment being damaged. The amount of plastic waste generated is also expected to surge further over the next decade as oil companies, which often also produce plastics, look for new sources of revenue in the energy transition.
According to the United Nations Environment Program, about 98 percent of single-use plastics, such as bottles or packaging, currently come from fossil fuels.
Differences among States on treaty-making
It has been reported that dozens of countries, including the European Union, Japan, Canada and Kenya, are currently calling for a strong plastics pollution prevention treaty with "binding provisions" to reduce the production and use of virgin plastic polymers derived from petrochemicals and to eliminate or restrict problematic plastics, such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and other plastics with toxic components.
But this position is opposed by the plastics industry and by oil and petrochemical exporters such as Saudi Arabia, which want to see the use of plastics continue. They argue that the treaty should focus on the recovery and reuse of plastics - the "recyclability" of the plastic supply.
In a document submitted ahead of this week's negotiations, the Saudis said the root cause of plastic pollution was "inefficient waste management."
The United States, which initially wanted a treaty consisting of national plastics control plans, has also changed its original position in recent months. In a statement to the media, a State Department spokesperson said that the United States now believes that, while the treaty should still be based on national plans, those plans should reflect globally agreed upon goals for reducing plastic pollution, and that those goals should be "meaningful and feasible".
Matthew Kastner, a spokesman for the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA), also said that ICCA wanted the treaty to include measures to "accelerate the circular economy of plastics." In a statement, Kastner said, "The plastics agreement should be focused on ending plastics pollution, not on plastics production. "
On Saturday, Saudi Arabia, along with China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Bahrain, launched an organization called the Global Alliance for Sustainable Development of Plastics, which will promote a treaty that focuses on waste disposal rather than production control.
Also this week, countries will debate whether the treaty should set transparency standards for the use of chemicals in plastics production.
Of course, before discussing substantive issues, delegates will also need to address procedural objections that slowed progress in the INC-2 talks in June, when the Saudis said decisions should be adopted by consensus rather than by majority vote. Consensus would allow a single country to have the ability to block decisions to move the treaty forward, a move not supported by most countries.
"We need a radical rethink of the global plastics economy that can't be bogged down by derailed tactics and false solutions," said Christina Dixon, head of the oceans campaign at the U.K.-based nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency.
On Sunday, a group of 20 international scientists has sent an open letter to negotiators asking them to put health issues at the center of the talks and to pursue a treaty that would reduce plastic production and require proper testing of all chemicals in plastics.
