As talks on finalising a global plastics pact remain deadlocked, calls are growing for ambitious countries not to settle for a “bad” deal that fails to tackle the growing production of plastics.
Speaking at a webinar hosted by Climate Home News, Juan Carlos Monterrey-Gomez, Panama’s special representative for climate change, said his country would reject a treaty that only deals with waste management – an option aggressively pursued by a group of fossil fuel-producing nations.
“That’s not the mandate, that’s not what we’ve been working towards and that’s not what we need,” said Monterrey-Gomez. “The worst outcome here for Panama is not disagreement…it is an agreement so weak that it would change nothing. We’re not negotiating the minimum political option”.
The Central American nation is among a group of nearly 100 countries that called for the UN plastics treaty to reduce plastic production to “sustainable levels” from the expected trajectory of tripling by 2060.
The mandate underpinning the negotiations – currently in the middle of what’s meant to be their final session in Geneva – states that the pact should address the “full lifecycle” of plastics, considering all stages of a plastic item’s existence.
“The lifecycle starts with the production of the polymers that are the raw materials for all the plastic products that we use,” said Monterrey-Gomez. Nearly all plastic polymers are derived from fossil fuels.
But, for a group of countries, including Gulf nations, Russia, India and the US, the treaty should only deal with downstream measures such as recycling and waste management.
Fossil fuel influence in Geneva
The long-standing deadlock over whether to reduce production of plastics is the result of the petrochemical industry’s influence over the talks, the Panamanian negotiator said.
“Unhinged plastic production is the petrochemical industry’s plan B – they know the world is moving away from fossil fuels and into renewable energy,” he added, “they have infiltrated these negotiations, they are trying to safeguard their interests, their profit to the detriment of everybody else”.
234 fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists registered for the Geneva talks – more than the combined delegations of all 27 EU member states plus the European Union itself, according to an analysis by the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL)
The presence of the fossil fuel industry has also been prevalent at UN climate COPs, where last year at COP29 in Baku more than 1700 coal, oil and gas lobbyists attended the talks — outnumbering the delegations from all 10 most climate-vulnerable countries in the world combined.
David Azoulay, a senior attorney at CIEL, told the Climate Home webinar that while the majority of countries are negotiating in good faith, a “core group of oil and gas producing countries” is actively blocking the discussions.
“What’s at play for them is not just a question of economy but the survival of their power structures” derived from their fossil fuel exports, he added.
The International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA), an industry trade body, said in a statement that their delegates are “here to listen to governments so we can understand the unique challenges they face” and bring solutions and technical expertise “that can help end plastic pollution”.
Plastic producers negotiating in “good faith”
As more than 70 ministers are scheduled to arrive in Geneva on Tuesday in a last-ditch attempt to inject political momentum into the talks and land an agreement, negotiations remain locked in closed-door discussions looking for potential solutions.
Monterrey-Gomez praised countries outside of the self-styled ‘high ambition coalition’ – such as China, Indonesia and South Africa – for acting “in good faith” and coming forward with ideas that “guide us towards where we need to be”.
He explained that China made a proposal to address the leakage of plastic pollution caused at the manufacturing stage of plastic products.
Meanwhile, Indonesia supported a proposal originally submitted by Japan that would see countries “cooperate to promote sustainable consumption and production of plastics throughout their life cycle”. South Africa put forward a text stating that a future conference of the parties (COP) should “manage” the consumption and production of plastics.
Monterrey-Gomez said those countries “have advanced their positions” in Geneva because they can “clearly see the economic case” of tackling plastic pollution. “It’s in their interest to have a level playing field and a global standard so that we can all enact a new wave of prosperity that doesn’t include plastics,” he added.
CIEL’s Azoulay said, while no international issue has simply been solved with a treaty, there needs to be a global framework that lays the ground rules and the basic principles that can be bolstered over time.
But he warned that a “bad treaty” would not only set us back but also “fossilise” the status quo and prevent us from taking action, as some countries could use the existence of a global plastics pact to block initiatives elsewhere.
“Countries that are suffering the most from this will say ‘we’re not going to accept it’”, added Azoulay. “We’ve been hearing consistently from small delegations like PSIDS [Pacific Small Island Developing States] to bigger ones like the EU that there are red lines – a treaty that crosses those red lines is not a treaty that is going to be accepted”.
