On March 2 2022, delegates to the UN environment assembly adopted an ambitious resolution to develop the text of a new treaty by the end of 2024 to end plastic pollution. With 24 days of formal negotiation between almost 200 countries completed, spread over meetings in Peru, France, Kenya and Canada, the fifth and final negotiation meeting is about to take place in Busan, South Korea. This is crunch time. Agreement must be found or the opportunity to take global action to tackle plastic pollution might be lost.
I have studied international action to tackle plastic pollution for the past decade. During this time, I have witnessed remarkable growth in plastic waste – an estimated 400 million tonnes is thrown away every year. Plastic pollution is now ubiquitous.
The issue of plastic pollution has moved up the public and political agenda in a way few could have predicted. Global action has always been the missing piece of the picture, as the plastics economy transcends national boundaries, and actions in one jurisdiction, while locally beneficial, tend not to address global pollution patterns.
To tackle plastic pollution, a shift in the entire plastics economy is needed. This should focus on reuse and refill schemes, which reduce the need for new plastic products and the substitution of plastics with other materials that are less polluting or harmful.
With my team of policy researchers, I have attended the last three plastics treaty negotiation meetings as an observer to gauge progress towards a global treaty. For the most part, progress has been slow, largely because of delaying and blocking tactics by a few countries that depend on fossil fuel industries. Lobbying from the petrochemical industry frustrates progress further. Given the tight timescale to agree the treaty, I worry that no agreement will be reached.
Final negotiations must include three things.
An immediate priority is to agree on the rules governing how decisions are taken in the negotiations between member states, known as the “rules of procedure”. At present, decisions are taken by consensus, meaning all delegations must agree before a decision is reached.
Given the entrenched positions of some countries, consensus-based decision-making is unlikely to yield rapid agreement because the positions of some nations are so far apart. The rules of procedure needs to include a voting mechanism so that when there is decisive agreement between most nations a decisions can be taken and progress can be made, when consensus cannot be reached.
The second critical issue is finance. Plastic pollution is a challenge most acutely faced by low- and middle-income countries. The plastics treaty is only likely to be effective if there’s adequate funding for countries most affected by plastic pollution to take action.
As witnessed in the climate debate, finance is incredibly contentious and raises critical questions. That includes who will pay for the problems plastic pollution has already caused and the new measures to tackle plastic pollution, plus how supporting countries can best provide necessary technology and training.
The role of the private sector is also significant in the plastics economy, and discussions are underway about innovative options for private finance to support treaty implementation. For the treaty to be credible, agreement on the broad terms of a finance mechanism for treaty implementation is essential.
The treaty must also focus on actions most likely to reduce plastic pollution. There is clear evidence that reducing the production of primary plastic polymers reduces plastic pollution most efficiently and effectively.
Plastic is made at such a rate that it is impossible for waste management systems to keep up. So a treaty that focuses on waste management will not reduce plastic pollution significantly enough. Only putting the brake on plastic production will stop the inundation of plastic waste.
There are, of course, many other important elements to agree on during negotiations. Criteria must be set to identify problematic, unnecessary and avoidable plastics that companies should stop making. Problematic plastics have harmful effects on human health or the environment, so any chemicals of concern must be removed from plastic materials and products. Unnecessary plastics are those with a function that is deemed non-essential, while avoidable plastics have an essential function but could be replaced by a non-plastic alternative.
Subsidies on virgin plastics that make single-use products so financially attractive need to be stripped away. Any changes in the plastics economy that this treaty create need to benefit workers in the informal waste sector too.
This week is critical for the world’s relationship with plastics. People and planet depend on it.
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Steve Fletcher receives funding from the United Nations Environment Programme, World Bank, World Economic Forum, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Aquapak Ltd, Defra, and the Flotilla Foundation. He is a member of the United Nations International Resource Panel and is the NERC Agenda Setting Fellow for Plastic Pollution.
