Some 196 fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists have registered for the critical fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4) to advance a global plastics treaty.
A new analysis from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), in collaboration with a number of NGOs, shows a 37% increase in lobbyists from INC-3. CIEL said the footprint of industry lobbyists is progressively increasing as calls for the treaty to address plastic production grow both inside and outside the negotiations, which are taking place this week in Ottawa, Canada.
Some 99% of plastics are derived from fossil fuels, and the fossil fuel industry continues to clutch onto plastics and petrochemicals as a lifeline, CIEL said. Its analysis showed the total number of fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists registered is three times greater than the 58 independent scientists from the Scientists’ Coalition for An Effective Plastic Treaty and seven times greater than the 28 representatives of the Indigenous Peoples Caucus.
“The outcome of these talks is of critical importance to countries and communities around the world, and it is vital to expose and confront the role of corporations whose agendas are fundamentally in conflict with the global public interest. Access to the negotiations is just one piece of the puzzle,” said CIEL campaigner Delphine Levi Alvares.
The focus of INC-4 is to advance treaty text that will be ready for the final scheduled session (INC-5) in November. To accomplish this, negotiators must narrow potential options for provisions and make decisions on key issues. Campaigners and those pushing for an ambitious treaty that will confront the triple planetary crisis, says it is critical that the full lifecycle of plastics are addressed, beginning with production.
States and companies reliant on continued production of fossil-fuel based plastics do not want a cap put in place; instead they want the focus to be on recycling. Countries are “more divided than ever” on the solutions to the plastics crisis, noted Reuters this week. The chair of the Ottawa negotiations told the media outlet that he planned to split national delegates into seven working groups this week to work on unresolved issues, including what the treaty should include and how it should be implemented.
Businesses are also split too. NGOs have been enthused by how food and drink businesses, through initiatives like the Business Coalition for a global plastics treaty, have generally aligned with their thinking on plastic pollution and what an effective treaty could look like. But companies are not all quite as comfortable with this as campaigners think (or the public statements suggest).
“I’m concerned that corporations are trying to control the scientific narrative by ‘domesticating’ the community,” wrote Norwegian University of Science and Technology professor Martin Wagner in the journal Nature this month. “They create and support meetings, research projects and learned societies to ostensibly ‘support science’, while redefining it.”
