The final talks to seal a global treaty on plastics, aka INC-5, kicked off this week. “Real world expectations versus my hopes and dreams are probably two quite different things at the moment,” said Christina Dixon in a podcast just before she headed out to Busan, South Korea with the team at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).
They will be joined by other NGOs, industry and politicians, as they try and thrash out some kind of agreement before December 1st. The possibility of a production cap, bans on certain chemicals and funding for infrastructure are all up for debate.
However, as we reach the halfway point glasses are now half empty with the talks “mired in division”, according to Reuters. It’s the big petrochemical players versus those who are demanding that any deal must cap production of plastics (what is commonly referred to as ‘addressing the full life cycle of plastics’).
There is, reportedly, time-wasting; as the deadline looms the pressure to agree any deal will intensify. “Countries lamented how talks have stalled in contact groups, and the more ambitious countries openly stated their frustrations at the small number of member states who they claim are negotiating in bad faith,” wrote Claire Arkin from GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives). “From previous plenaries and INCs, it is safe to assume that they are referring to the petro-states calling themselves the ‘like-minded group’,” she added.
WWF is among those putting pressure on the US president and delegation this week as reports swirled that the country is backtracking in its support for a cap on production. White House staffers reportedly said US delegates would support a “flexible” approach in which countries set their own voluntary targets for reducing plastic production, according to Grist.
The UK currently supports a cap on production of plastics. Speaking last week during a debate in Westminster Hall, Emma Hardy, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at Defra, said “the UK supports binding provisions in the treaty to reduce the production and consumption of primary plastic polymers to sustainable levels, and to enable the transition to a circular economy”.
Global plastic production is projected to double by 2050, reaching 800 million metric tonnes annually, Hardy noted. Evidence shows that on current trends, waste management infrastructure will not be able to keep up with the pace of plastic production and consumption, and the level of mismanaged plastic waste will continue to rise, she added.
The UK is a founding member of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution. That coalition includes more than 60 countries, and calls for an ambitious and effective treaty that will end plastic pollution by 2040.
However, the coalition will need all the support and fight it can muster, it seems. Some 220 fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists have registered to participate in INC-5, according to the Center for International Environmental Law, which is the highest at any negotiation for the plastics treaty so far analysed by CIEL. The lobbysists actually outnumber the host Republic of Korea’s 140 representatives, as well as delegations from the European Union and all its member states combined (191) and the 89 representatives from Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS).
Chemical and fossil fuel industry lobbyists also outnumber the Scientists’ Coalition for An Effective Plastic Treaty by three to one.“From the moment the gavel came down at UNEA-5.2 to now, we have watched industry lobbyists surrounding the negotiations with sadly well-known tactics of obstruction, distraction, intimidation, and misinformation,” said CIEL global petrochemical campaign manager Delphine Levi Alvares. Their strategy is “lifted straight from the climate negotiations playbook”, she added.
