A “first version” of the future international treaty against plastic pollution must be drafted by November, the 175 countries meeting in Paris decided on Friday after five days of painstaking negotiations.
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After the negotiation work of these days, the 175 countries gathered in Paris to reach an international treaty against plastic pollution decided, on Friday, June 2, to establish a “first version” of the text for their next meeting in November in Kenya. A crucial step before a final text expected by the end of 2024.
“Here is what was proposed, is it decided?” the president of UN Environment’s International Negotiating Committee (INC), Gustavo Meza-Cuadra Velásquez, asked the delegates before adopting the resolution with a hammer to the applause of the delegates.
Two days of lockdown
This positive result follows a “laborious start to the week” and “some delaying maneuvers” by certain countries, in the words of the French Minister for the Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, on Friday morning.
Negotiators were only able to get to the heart of the matter on Wednesday night after two days of blockade by the Gulf countries, the main oil producers; as well as China, Brazil and India.
“By 2050, there will be more plastic waste than fish in the oceans (…) We cannot stay with procedural rules,” Mexican negotiator Camila Zepeda told AFP on Friday, whose harsh interventions against the obstruction of certain countries were hailed. during the week.
“This week’s negotiations clearly show that oil-producing countries and the fossil fuel industry are doing everything possible to weaken the treaty and delay the process,” Greenpeace said in a statement.
For its part, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) praised the “tangible progress”. “A vast majority of countries, 145 by our count, expressed this week the need for the treaty to provide for binding obligations,” WWF’s Eirik Lindebjerg told AFP.
Reduced world production
The principle of a legally binding treaty was agreed in February 2022 in Nairobi, at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
The stakes are high because plastic, derived from petrochemicals, is everywhere: packaging, clothing fibers, construction equipment, medical tools… Debris of all sizes is already found at the bottom of the oceans, in the birds’ stomachs, in the upper part of the mountains and microplastics have been detected in blood, breast milk and even the placenta.
To “end plastic pollution by 2040”, some fifty countries, including those of the G7, with the exception of the United States, have formed a Coalition for High Ambition, which has placed the reduction of world production among its priorities, which, however, is not unanimous.
The large producing countries prefer to talk about reuse, alternatives to plastic and recycling, but this axis is criticized by NGOs. Among the solutions also discussed are better waste management and financial mechanisms to help the poorest countries.
Fight against plastic pollution: “We will not get out of it by recycling”
The issue of the toxicity of plastics and additives, raised by civil society and scientists, is also mentioned, but many countries and industrialists, influential observers of the process, fear that the future treaty will block innovation.
After technical discussions at the end of 2022 in Uruguay, Paris hosted the second session of negotiations. After the third meeting in Kenya in November, the negotiations will continue in April 2024 in Canada to conclude in South Korea at the end of 2024.
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