UN plastic talks on verge of collapse in final hours

BUSAN, South Korea — With mere hours to go until global plastic treaty talks are meant to wrap up, negotiations are starting to crumble. Many delegates are settling in for an extra round of talks at a later date.

A vocal minority of oil-rich and plastic-producing countries continue to push back on measures that threaten to reduce the production of plastic.

Sunday morning saw a show of force from Mexico, France, the EU, Panama, Rwanda and Fiji, as their representatives bashed a coalition of oil-rich and plastic-producing countries coordinated by Saudi Arabia.

Addressing a packed media room, with journalists and delegates spilling out into the hall, French Energy Minister Olga Givernet said: “We … are worried by the continuing obstruction by the so-called like-minded countries; and we know definitely that it may be a minority, but still we have to be all together the most as we can to push [the talks] forward.”

The EU’s Special Envoy for Climate and Environment Diplomacy Anthony Agotha said: “Despite the fact that in these final hours, we’re still with great concern about the outcome, I feel a lot of good vibrations in this room … In these final hours the European Union will work till the last dog dies to get it done, but [the treaty] has to be meaningful.”

Hopeful allied delegates and civil society groups in the room were buoyed by the strong remarks — but just hours later, a draft treaty text landed that, for some, put hopes of achieving an ambitious treaty on Sunday to bed.

“This version of the text is … not acceptable. … We have to negotiate this from the polymer, meaning the production,” Cheikh Ndiaye Sylla, Senegal’s representative, said in another press conference. “No text is better than bad text.”  

The new text is peppered with brackets and weaker language on the key sticking points, including whether to reduce plastic production, whether and how to phase out problematic plastic products and chemicals of concern, and how to finance the legal instrument.

Three negotiators from countries within the high-ambition coalition of countries — granted anonymity to discuss closed-door talks — confirmed that Saudi Arabia is at the heart of the charge against a plastic treaty that impacts plastic production. It is leading the most reluctant nations within the self-named “like-minded coalition” that groups together oil-rich and plastic-producing countries — and has faced accusations of obstructing the talks since last year.

Some countries have been pinning their hopes on bringing China and India onside. But China, too, has pushed back on the floated measures to reduce plastic production. China is the world’s biggest plastic producer.

A final plenary is still to take place later today — but, increasingly, delegates are talking of organizing an extra round of negotiations.

“We’re not just negotiating a treaty, we’re deciding whether we care enough to save ourselves,” Panama’s Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez said early Sunday. “Plastics for Panama are a weapon of mass destruction.”