As negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty enter their final stretch in Busan, South Korea, environmental and human rights advocates warned Friday that national delegates are “sleepwalking into a treaty that will not be worth the paper it will be written on.”
The current treaty draft text, shared with delegates on Friday, excludes key civil society demands, such as a clear and binding limit on plastic production and a ban or phaseout of the most dangerous plastics and chemicals.
“Despite the majority support of promising proposals for a strong and binding treaty on plastic pollution, what we have currently in this text is far from what we need,” Erin Simon, WWF vice president and head of plastic waste and business, said in a statement.
A majority of the countries gathered for the fifth Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) to advance a plastics treaty supports bans on the most dangerous plastics and chemicals, binding rules on production design to ease a transition toward a circular economy, sufficient financial support to make the treaty a reality, and a robust mechanism to strengthen the treaty over time. They are backed by nearly 3 million people in more than 182 countries who signed a petition ahead of the last round of negotiations calling for an ambitious treaty.
Since negotiations began on November 25, however, progress has been stymied by oil-and-gas-producing nations such as Saudi Arabia, which called capping plastic production a red line, according to The Associated Press. At the same time, plastics industry lobbyists together make up the largest single delegation at the talks.
“It’s very simple: To end plastic pollution we need to reduce plastic production,” Simon said. “To do that we need binding global bans on specific harmful plastic products and chemicals. Despite the majority support of promising proposals for global product and chemical bans, the latest draft treaty text offers nothing of use.”
In order to bridge the gap on limiting plastics production before negotiations conclude on Sunday or Monday, Panama put forward a proposal on Thursday that would not set a numerical plastics production limit at this time, but would entrust signatories to do so at a later meeting. This proposal was backed by over 100 countries and was included in the draft text shared on Friday, alongside an option to eliminate the article on........