The latest efforts to craft a global treaty to tackle plastic pollution have ended in ignominious failure once again. The gulf between the so-called high ambition countries and those with less lofty goals was simply too great to bridge this time. This isn’t the end of efforts to secure an agreement, but whether the differences that scuppered the latest negotiations can be overcome remains to be seen.
Global production of the plastics that fuel this pollution is set to triple by 2060 to over 1 billion tonnes. Single-use plastics are a particular problem and scientific research has an outsized plastic waste footprint – one estimate suggests that research generates more than 5.5 million tonnes of single-use plastics a year, which equates to around 2% of global plastic waste. It seems uncontroversial then to state that reining in production will be essential to tackle the problem, but this was one of the main sticking points at the negotiations in Geneva. Countries with large petrochemical industries, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, are currently unwilling to put any limits on these industries as they are a vital part of their economy and could help offset the switch to electric vehicles and away from fossil fuels. Equally, these lower-ambition countries are against restrictions on the ingredients that go into plastics, some of which are toxic and others that make recycling more difficult. They contend that plastics are vital for modern life – no argument here – and that plastic pollution should be treated solely as a waste and recycling issue. This shifts the burden of dealing with the problem onto individual countries, while at the same time the plastics industry is given the green light to add more plastic to the problem.
This short-term thinking threatens to lock us into a world where plastic production keeps increasing – short-term gains for some, while everyone else is buried under a growing mountain of plastic waste. To break the deadlock bold action is needed from the majority of countries that favour curbs on production, restrictions on chemicals of concern and altering the design of plastics to phase out certain ingredients to make them simpler to recycle.
At the moment, consensus is needed among all UN member states on a treaty text before any progress can be made. This has made it straightforward to block any draft text a country considers overly ambitious – something that has already happened several times. So, looking to the next round of negotiations the majority of countries that favour a robust treaty must consider stronger action, such as forcing a vote on the issue – although this is likely to be highly controversial and has been avoided to date. Despite the setbacks there’s still hope for a stronger treaty, but it’s likely to take time. After all, reaching agreement on controlling hydrofluorocarbons took eight years and plastic pollution is a far thornier problem.
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