GENEVA (AP) — Negotiations on a global treaty to end plastic pollution are drawing to a close Thursday, as nations remain deadlocked over whether to tackle the exponential growth of plastic production.
A draft of the treaty released Wednesday wouldn’t limit plastic production or address chemicals used in plastic products. Instead, it’s centered on proposals where there’s broad agreement — such as reducing the number of problematic plastic products that often enter the environment and are difficult to recycle, promoting the redesign of plastic products so they can be recycled and reused, and improving waste management.
It asks nations to make commitments to ending plastic pollution, rather than imposing global, legally-binding rules.
A new draft is expected Thursday afternoon, and the talks — involving representatives from 184 countries and more than 600 organizations — are likely to conclude Friday.
Andreas Bjelland Eriksen, Norway’s minister for climate and the environment, said the current text is unacceptable and the country’s representatives won’t leave Geneva with “just any treaty.” Norway is helping to lead a coalition of countries called the High Ambition Coalition that want a comprehensive approach to ending plastic pollution, including reducing production.
“We are going to be flexible, but at the same time ambitious in our positions, and work with every single hour that we have left to bring this to a conclusion, a positive conclusion, because the world needs a plastics treaty now.”
Eriksen said he’ll stay “cautiously optimistic” until the bitter end.
Every year, the world makes more than 400 million tons of new plastic, and that could grow by about 70% by 2040 without policy changes. About 100 countries want to limit production as well as tackle cleanup and recycling. Many have said it’s essential to address toxic chemicals.
Powerful oil and gas-producing nations and the plastics industry oppose production limits. They want a treaty focused on better waste management and reuse. They have raised different concerns with the draft text, saying it doesn’t have the scope they want to set the parameters of the treaty or precise definitions.
Camila Zepeda, from Mexico’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, said it doesn’t seem feasible at this stage to get a limit on production. But, she said, they want to see something more in the treaty on sustainable production and consumption than the brief mention in the current preamble.
Mexico and Switzerland are also leading a push for an article to address problematic plastic products, including chemicals and single-use plastics.
“We are on the final stretch, but we remain hopeful and we remain committed to making sure that we’re putting back in the text some provisions that will allow us to to strengthen it, to deliver, and to have an impact,” she said. “That’s what we want at the end.”
It’s the sixth time nations are meeting and the 10th day of negotiations. Talks last year in South Korea were supposed to be the final round, but they adjourned in December at an impasse over cutting production and agreed to meet again.
Some in attendance wondered whether the outcome in Geneva will be the same.
Sivendra Michael, Fiji’s permanent secretary for environment and climate change, emphatically rejected the idea of another meeting. It is costly, unfair, and tedious to travel so far to continuously restate positions, he said Thursday. He said he firmly believed this meeting should conclude with a formal treaty that will be acceptable to all.
However, Hiwot Hailu, chief of staff for the Environmental Protection Authority of Ethiopia, said Ethiopia supports meeting again if nations can’t reach agreement on important articles for financing the accord and addressing the full lifecycle of plastics, including production, design and disposal.
It would be better to not have a treaty, rather than a weak one, Hailu said.
Jessika Roswall, the European commissioner for the environment, said the treaty must cover the full lifecycle of plastics and be able to evolve over time with science.
“A weak, static agreement serves no one,” she said in a statement. “The next few hours will show whether we can rise to the moment.”
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