A global treaty to curb plastic pollution was supposed to be finished by now. But last year, after delegates at a theoretically final meeting in Busan, South Korea, failed to reach agreement, a second “final” meeting is taking place next month in Geneva, Switzerland.
Plastics increasingly clog rivers and oceans, impacting wildlife and people who depend on local waters for their income. From nano-sized particles that can enter living organisms and require huge effort to detect, to massive fishing nets that can entangle and kill multiple animals as they drift on the sea – they have been found in every environment where scientists have looked for them.
“Let us all remember that it remains, more than ever, our collective responsibility to deliver an international legally binding instrument that is effective in addressing the urgent environmental challenge we face, and that will protect future generations and the environment from plastic pollution, including in the marine environment,” said Luis Vayas Valdivieso, Ecuador’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and the chair of the treaty’s intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC), in his outline for how the meeting will run.
The key issue is much the same in Geneva as ahead of the Busan meeting: will a treaty curb production of plastics that end up as waste? This is what a group of countries organised as the Stand Up for Ambition coalition want, but they face strong headwinds from countries with major plastics industries and oil-producing nations who make the raw material for plastics.
Zaynab Sadan, global plastics policy lead for the WWF, said in a statement that oil-producing countries “have been using consensus not to build agreement, but to undermine and sabotage it”.
Sadan said an ambitious majority of countries must now push ahead either by forcing voting on the treaty, something that nations have been reluctant to do at past meetings. Alternatively they could form a majority of ambitious counties to adopt the treaty outside of the INC process, she added.
Other sticking points remain beyond the production issue, notably what to do about chemicals deemed particularly dangerous in plastics.
“Scientific studies and material flow modelling clearly demonstrate that addressing upstream plastic production is essential to ending plastic pollution and protecting health and the environment,” wrote a group of scientists in the journal Nature Sustainability last month.
They added: “Throughout the negotiations, the scientific community has consistently called for global, science-based criteria and lists for chemicals of concern in plastics and problematic plastic products, along with time-bound phase-out periods.”
Allegations that plastics industry lobbyists are determined to water down or completely derail the treaty have resurfaced ahead of the Geneva meeting. Leading plastics researcher Bethanie Carney Almroth told the Guardian her experience of being harassed and monitored at previous meetings. (She had spoken to Dialogue Earth ahead of the Busan meeting last year.)
“I count on each participant in the work of the Committee to arrive in Geneva with the determination, drive and constructive engagement, and willingness to show flexibility, that we all need to achieve this important goal,” said Vayas Valdivieso.
The world will soon find out if that message has been heeded.