Negotiations are slipping to establish the first global treaty aimed at reducing plastic pollution and its consequences on the environment and public health. A group of about sixty countries, united in the Coalition of High Ambitions, in favor of a strong and binding treaty, is facing a small group of countries, mainly oil producers, such as Russia, Arabia Saudi Arabia and Iran. The latter want the Busan treaty to only concern waste management and recycling and not the entire plastic life cycle, from production to recycling.
However, the Busan summit made some progress. More than a hundred countries, including the European Union, have joined a proposal from Panama to set in stone the principle of reducing plastic production. A great first, even if the numerical objectives are left aside for the moment. At current rates, plastic production is expected to double by 2050 to one billion tonnes and will account for 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
No reduction, no deal
Faced with blockages, some countries are raising the possibility of putting the treaty to a vote instead of adoption by consensus, as is generally the case for major international environmental agreements. That causes some teeth grinding. Hence the threat of failure.
“There is less flexibility among delegates from some countries,” JM Bope Bope Lapwong, head of the Congolese delegation, told AFP. These countries, according to him, “Forget to take into account the danger of plastic in a global way, and consider only the economic aspect.”
“Most of the delegates from the countries present here call it a very ambitious treaty”launched the head of the delegation of Panama, Juan Carlos Monterrey, in a press conference. For the latter, the message is simple: no reduction in production, no treatment. “We cannot let a few screaming voices derail the process and condemn us to a planet completely polluted by plastic”he added.
