30 April 2024 – Back in 2022 nations agreed to draw up a legally binding agreement to end plastic pollution in a historic move. But two years on and the UN talks on plastic pollution are at risk of failing, leaving the world to choke on plastic.
When in March 2022 the UN announced that at the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) member states agreed to a resolution to create a legally binding agreement to end plastic pollution by 2024, hopes were high.
But from the start, negotiations were fraught with difficulties. The previous round of talks in Nairobi in November last year were abandoned, because oil-producing nations wanted to focus on waste management rather than plastic production.
And now, in the year the legally binding treaty is supposed to be signed, it seems that the nations involved in the talks are nowhere near forging this historic global treaty on ending plastic pollution.
The Scope Of The Resolution
The name given to the resolution UN Member States have agreed has the snappy title “End Plastic Pollution: Towards an internationally legally binding instrument”. So the purpose is clear: come up with a global treaty that is legally binding and will end plastic pollution.
The timeframe to get the negotiations done and have a signed treaty given was two years. By the end of 2024, the treaty document should be agreed and signed. No small task, given that the resolution covers the full lifecycle of plastic.
This includes production, design and disposal, making it a huge task for the negotiating nations.
To facilitate the talks on ending plastic pollution, an Intergovernmental Negotiation Committe (INC) was established. It began work in 2022 and negotiations have been going on ever since.
But as simple as the aim of the talks might seem, getting there is far from easy, because there is a lot of money to be made in the plastic production, which is estimated to be worth £610bn.
And how difficult it is to bring together countries with opposite agendas can be seen in the outcomes of the talks that have happened so far.
Reaching Agreement Huge Challenge
While UN Member States might agree on the need to cut plastic waste, on how to do that there is less agreement.
At a meeting in Nairobi in November last year, negotiations faltered when oil-producing nations wanted to focus on waste management. But why? With over 90% of plastic made from fossil fuels, oil-producing nations have a lot to lose if plastic production is cut.
Furthermore, it’s fossil fuel companies that are the top plastic producers. And for them the solution doesn’t lie in reducing the amount we produce but in the way we dispose of it, for obvious reasons.
This month, delegates of the INC met in Ottawa, Canada for further negotiations. But on Monday evening the talks on plastic pollution were ended without an agreement on a proposal for a cut in global plastic production by 40% by 2040.
Put forward by Rwanda and Peru, the motion was supported by 29 other countries. But leading economies like the US and the UK didn’t support the proposal. In the end the majority of countries agreed to a compromise instead.
This led to developed countries being accused of bowing to the pressure of lobbyists of petrostates and industry at the last minute.
The presence of lobbyists for the fossil fuel and petrochemical industry has risen by 37% compared to the last talks in Nairobi. Already, in Nairobi there were 36% more lobbyists present than in the meeting before that.
Those lobbyists work tirelessly to prevent any agreement on a cut in plastic production to safeguard their industries’ profits.
Analysis by the Centre for International Environmental Law (Ciel) has shown that there were more lobbyists at the talks than EU delegates. And they outnumbered independent scientists by three to one.
With such huge numbers of lobbyists, it’s no wonder that the delegates struggle to come to an agreement on cutting plastic production and ending plastic pollution.
Our Opinion
The main issue facing efforts to save our planet is and always will be money. We saw it with the recent COP28 meeting, where the same lobbyists managed to water down the final agreement to only “call for” transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems.
While I can see why fossil fuel and petrochemical industries and petrostates are so keen not to lose their main source of income, this can’t happen to the detriment of our environment and the communities most impacted by climate change.
It’s not like they wouldn’t be able to switch to green ways of making money. For example the national oil company of the United Arab Emirates, ADNOC, is already investing in renewable energy. But at the same time they want to increase their oil production.
If they were to phase out their oil business and instead focus on building up their renewable energy business, they could keep their profits in the long term but without destroying our environment.
The problem is a huge one, but if all nations come together and honestly try to find a solution, I believe we can save our planet. Unfortunately, in this world, money doesn’t just talk, it screams, and it drowns out any other voices.
