“This is not ambition, it is surrender.” Panama’s delegate, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, said that in a Geneva meeting room on Wednesday, after the chair put a new treaty draft in front of the delegations. The world’s first legally binding plastic pollution treaty was a day from its deadline, and the talks had stalled.
His objection was blunt. Panama could not accept the text as a basis for negotiation, he said, and its red lines had been “spat on and burned.” The negotiators, he added, had “only 30 hours” left.
Walls of rejection
Colombia, the EU and the UK, all of which want targets to cut plastic production, rejected the draft by the chair, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, as “unacceptable” and “unambitious.” Colombia’s delegate, Sebastián Rodríguez, called it “completely unacceptable.” Chile’s head of delegation, Julio Cordano, pointed to gaps and shortcomings that did not match the scale of the problem.
The UK’s head of delegation, minister Emma Hardy, described it as the “lowest common denominator.” Then she added: “We need an effective treaty for our people and for our planet. Time is running out.”
Kenya said the paper read as a “waste management” instrument with “no democratic value” for states that want to limit plastic. Mexico called it a “crisis in multilateralism.”
Dennis Clare, a negotiator for Micronesia, was just as direct. “Some parties, including ours, are not even willing to engage on that text, it’s a step backward,” he said. In his view the paper leaned toward the like-minded countries. “There’s no binding measures on anything,” he said. “This text is just inadequate.”
What the draft left out
Production gets a single mention, in the preamble. An article on production from an earlier version is gone. Chemicals are not mentioned at all, and a reference to the “full life cycle” of plastics was also deleted.
Greenpeace called the text a “gift to the petrochemical industry and a betrayal of humanity.” Its head of delegation, Graham Forbes, said the draft “glorifies the industry lie that we can recycle our way out of this crisis.”
Two camps, one question
Almost 100 countries, Australia, Canada, Mexico and many African and Pacific nations among them, back binding limits on production. Many also want toxic chemicals in plastics controlled. Against them stand Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran, the “like-minded group,” which the Guardian reported has been supported by the US and the chemical industry. They would rather see the treaty deal with waste management and recycling.
Before the chair’s text came out, Colombian lawmaker Juan Carlos Lozada was already warning that without production limits there was no point. “I’d rather not have a treaty if we’re not going to have a very robust treaty,” he said. Norway’s delegation head, Andreas Bjelland, whose country co-chairs the high ambition coalition, pointed to the original mandate, which named sustainable production and consumption explicitly.
The talks were due to continue on Thursday. They closed without consensus, the sixth round in under three years. Cuban representatives called the session a “missed historic opportunity,” and island nations warned of the burden they carry from marine debris despite adding little to it.
Sources
- Talks stall on world’s first plastic pollution treaty one day before deadline
- Global Plastics Treaty Talks Collapse Amid Disputes
