Plastic pollution talks: the key sticking points
Agence France-Presse
December 2, 2024
A week of difficult UN plastics talks failed to yield an agreement
Agence France-Presse
December 2, 2024
A week of difficult UN plastics talks failed to yield an agreement
(ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP)
Divisions between countries have stalled negotiations on the world's first treaty to tackle plastic pollution, after a terse week of talks in South Korea's Busan.
Here are some of the sticking points that led to a decision early Monday to resume discussions at a later date after negotiators were unable to strike a deal:
- Production cuts -
The 2022 resolution that kicked off two years of negotiations called for a treaty that would "promote sustainable production and consumption of plastics".
But what that means has proved a key point of disagreement.
Dozens of nations want the deal to mandate a reduction of new plastic production, and there have been calls to phase out "unnecessary" items such as some single-use plastics.
"Mopping the floor when the tap is open is useless," said Anthony Agotha, the EU's special envoy for climate and environment.
But others, led by some oil-producing states like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, have pushed back against any binding reduction call.
"The objective of this treaty is to end plastic pollution, not plastic itself. Plastic has brought immense benefit to societies worldwide," Kuwait's delegate said Sunday.
- 'Chemicals of concern' -
An alliance led by Rwanda and Norway pushing for specific measures on production, the High Ambition Coalition (HAC), is also seeking controls on so-called chemicals of concern.
These are components of plastic that are known or feared to be harmful to human health.
Any agreement "must contain a clear, legally binding obligation to phase out the most harmful plastic products and chemicals of concern in plastics", Mexican delegate Camila Zepeda said in the final plenary session, in a statement backed by nearly 100 countries.
Fiji's representative had earlier warned there would be "no treaty without a provision on chemicals of concern", calling it "a non-negotiable".
But some countries have rejected any push to phase out or restrict the chemicals, pointing to existing international agreements and national regulations on toxins.
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) said its analysis of a UN list of participants at Busan showed over 200 lobbyists from the fossil fuel and chemical industries were registered for the talks.
- Finance -
Implementing any treaty will cost money that developing countries say they simply do not have.
An article on financing in the latest draft agreement released on Sunday was full of conflicting possible options, reflecting deep disagreement on who will pay what, and how.
One focus of the talks has been creating a dedicated multilateral fund for the purpose -- after the hard-fought battle at COP29 climate talks to extract more finance from developed countries.
But the details are proving complicated.
"As developing countries have repeatedly called for in the past few days, the instrument should respect national differences" and "reflect equity and inclusiveness," China's delegate said late Sunday.
- Globally binding? -
Will the treaty create overarching global rules that bind all nations to the same standards, or allow individual countries to set their own targets and goals?
This has been another sticking point, with the European Union initially warning that "a treaty in which each party would do only what they consider is necessary is not something we are ready to support".
On the other side are nations who argue that differing levels of capacity and economic growth make common standards unreasonable.
"There shall not be any compliance regime," reads language proposed during negotiations by Iran.
Instead, it has urged an "assessment committee" that would monitor progress but "in no way" examine compliance or implementation.
Divisions between countries have stalled negotiations on the world's first treaty to tackle plastic pollution, after a terse week of talks in South Korea's Busan.
Here are some of the sticking points that led to a decision early Monday to resume discussions at a later date after negotiators were unable to strike a deal:
- Production cuts -
The 2022 resolution that kicked off two years of negotiations called for a treaty that would "promote sustainable production and consumption of plastics".
But what that means has proved a key point of disagreement.
Dozens of nations want the deal to mandate a reduction of new plastic production, and there have been calls to phase out "unnecessary" items such as some single-use plastics.
"Mopping the floor when the tap is open is useless," said Anthony Agotha, the EU's special envoy for climate and environment.
But others, led by some oil-producing states like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, have pushed back against any binding reduction call.
"The objective of this treaty is to end plastic pollution, not plastic itself. Plastic has brought immense benefit to societies worldwide," Kuwait's delegate said Sunday.
- 'Chemicals of concern' -
An alliance led by Rwanda and Norway pushing for specific measures on production, the High Ambition Coalition (HAC), is also seeking controls on so-called chemicals of concern.
These are components of plastic that are known or feared to be harmful to human health.
Any agreement "must contain a clear, legally binding obligation to phase out the most harmful plastic products and chemicals of concern in plastics", Mexican delegate Camila Zepeda said in the final plenary session, in a statement backed by nearly 100 countries.
Fiji's representative had earlier warned there would be "no treaty without a provision on chemicals of concern", calling it "a non-negotiable".
But some countries have rejected any push to phase out or restrict the chemicals, pointing to existing international agreements and national regulations on toxins.
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) said its analysis of a UN list of participants at Busan showed over 200 lobbyists from the fossil fuel and chemical industries were registered for the talks.
- Finance -
Implementing any treaty will cost money that developing countries say they simply do not have.
An article on financing in the latest draft agreement released on Sunday was full of conflicting possible options, reflecting deep disagreement on who will pay what, and how.
One focus of the talks has been creating a dedicated multilateral fund for the purpose -- after the hard-fought battle at COP29 climate talks to extract more finance from developed countries.
But the details are proving complicated.
"As developing countries have repeatedly called for in the past few days, the instrument should respect national differences" and "reflect equity and inclusiveness," China's delegate said late Sunday.
- Globally binding? -
Will the treaty create overarching global rules that bind all nations to the same standards, or allow individual countries to set their own targets and goals?
This has been another sticking point, with the European Union initially warning that "a treaty in which each party would do only what they consider is necessary is not something we are ready to support".
On the other side are nations who argue that differing levels of capacity and economic growth make common standards unreasonable.
"There shall not be any compliance regime," reads language proposed during negotiations by Iran.
Instead, it has urged an "assessment committee" that would monitor progress but "in no way" examine compliance or implementation.
UN chief defends plastic pollution talks after collapse
By AFP
December 1, 2024
Copyright AFP Anthony WALLACE
Sara HUSSEIN
The UN environment chief insisted Monday that talks on a landmark plastic pollution treaty were not a failure, saying important progress was made despite negotiations collapsing without agreement.
“It obviously did not fail,” Inger Andersen told AFP, calling the two-year timeline for the deal set in 2022 “highly ambitious”.
“What we do have is very, very good progress,” Andersen, the head of the UN Environment Programme, said.
Nearly 200 countries spent a week locked in negotiations in Busan, South Korea, from November 25 with the goal of agreeing the world’s first treaty to curb plastic pollution.
Over 90 percent of plastic is not recycled and millions of tonnes of plastic waste litter the environment each year.
But in the early hours of Monday morning, negotiators effectively conceded defeat, acknowledging that they had failed to bridge serious divisions over the aims of the treaty.
Dozens of “high ambition” countries sought an agreement that would set targets to limit new production of plastic and phase out certain chemicals and single-use plastic products.
That was fiercely and repeatedly rejected by the so-called “like-minded” nations including Saudi Arabia and Russia, which insisted the text should contain no reference to production.
This group are mostly oil-producing countries who provide the fossil fuel used to make plastic.
The disagreement stymied progress through four rounds of talks preceding Busan, resulting in a draft treaty that ran over 70 pages and was riddled with contradictory language.
The diplomat chairing the talks sought to streamline the process by synthesising views in his own draft text, which Andersen said represented a step forward.
“We walked into this with a 77-page long paper. We now have a clean, streamlined… treaty text,” she said.
“That forward movement is significant and something frankly that I celebrate.”
– ‘Significant conversations’ –
But even the revised text is full of opposing views, and countries insisted that all parts of it would be open to renegotiation and amendment at any new round of talks.
That led environmental groups to warn that extending the so-called INC-5 talks to an INC-5.2 risks simply repeating the deadlock seen in Busan.
Andersen acknowledged that deep differences remain and “some significant conversations” are needed before any new talks.
“I do believe that there’s no point in meeting unless we can see a pathway from Busan to the treaty text being gavelled,” she said.
The final plenary of the talks saw dozens of countries back new production targets and phasing out chemicals believed or known to be harmful.
“A treaty that lacks these elements and only relies on voluntary measures would not be acceptable,” Rwanda’s Juliet Kabera said.
But Saudi Arabia’s Abdulrahman Al Gwaiz indicated that production cuts remains a red line for many nations.
“If you address plastic pollution, there should be no problem with producing plastics, because the problem is the pollution, not the plastics themselves,” he said.
Andersen said it was clear that “there’s a group of countries that give voice to an economic sector,” but added that finding a way forward was possible.
“That’s how negotiations work. Countries have different interests, they present them and the conversations then have to take place… seeking to find that common ground.”
No date or location has yet been set for resumed talks, though Saudi Arabia and others sought to restart no sooner than mid-2025.
Andersen said she remained “absolutely determined” to win a deal next year.
“Sooner is much better than later because we have a massive problem.”
By AFP
December 1, 2024
Copyright AFP Anthony WALLACE
Sara HUSSEIN
The UN environment chief insisted Monday that talks on a landmark plastic pollution treaty were not a failure, saying important progress was made despite negotiations collapsing without agreement.
“It obviously did not fail,” Inger Andersen told AFP, calling the two-year timeline for the deal set in 2022 “highly ambitious”.
“What we do have is very, very good progress,” Andersen, the head of the UN Environment Programme, said.
Nearly 200 countries spent a week locked in negotiations in Busan, South Korea, from November 25 with the goal of agreeing the world’s first treaty to curb plastic pollution.
Over 90 percent of plastic is not recycled and millions of tonnes of plastic waste litter the environment each year.
But in the early hours of Monday morning, negotiators effectively conceded defeat, acknowledging that they had failed to bridge serious divisions over the aims of the treaty.
Dozens of “high ambition” countries sought an agreement that would set targets to limit new production of plastic and phase out certain chemicals and single-use plastic products.
That was fiercely and repeatedly rejected by the so-called “like-minded” nations including Saudi Arabia and Russia, which insisted the text should contain no reference to production.
This group are mostly oil-producing countries who provide the fossil fuel used to make plastic.
The disagreement stymied progress through four rounds of talks preceding Busan, resulting in a draft treaty that ran over 70 pages and was riddled with contradictory language.
The diplomat chairing the talks sought to streamline the process by synthesising views in his own draft text, which Andersen said represented a step forward.
“We walked into this with a 77-page long paper. We now have a clean, streamlined… treaty text,” she said.
“That forward movement is significant and something frankly that I celebrate.”
– ‘Significant conversations’ –
But even the revised text is full of opposing views, and countries insisted that all parts of it would be open to renegotiation and amendment at any new round of talks.
That led environmental groups to warn that extending the so-called INC-5 talks to an INC-5.2 risks simply repeating the deadlock seen in Busan.
Andersen acknowledged that deep differences remain and “some significant conversations” are needed before any new talks.
“I do believe that there’s no point in meeting unless we can see a pathway from Busan to the treaty text being gavelled,” she said.
The final plenary of the talks saw dozens of countries back new production targets and phasing out chemicals believed or known to be harmful.
“A treaty that lacks these elements and only relies on voluntary measures would not be acceptable,” Rwanda’s Juliet Kabera said.
But Saudi Arabia’s Abdulrahman Al Gwaiz indicated that production cuts remains a red line for many nations.
“If you address plastic pollution, there should be no problem with producing plastics, because the problem is the pollution, not the plastics themselves,” he said.
Andersen said it was clear that “there’s a group of countries that give voice to an economic sector,” but added that finding a way forward was possible.
“That’s how negotiations work. Countries have different interests, they present them and the conversations then have to take place… seeking to find that common ground.”
No date or location has yet been set for resumed talks, though Saudi Arabia and others sought to restart no sooner than mid-2025.
Andersen said she remained “absolutely determined” to win a deal next year.
“Sooner is much better than later because we have a massive problem.”
By AFP
December 1, 2024
People look through plastic and other debris washed ashore at a beach on Indonesia's resort island of Bali - Copyright AFP SONNY TUMBELAKA
Isabel MALSANG
For Caleb Justin Smith-White, negotiations in South Korea on a landmark global deal to curb plastic pollution are about more than the environment. They are about saving lives.
He is one of dozens of people who have travelled from across the world to the city of Busan to share personal stories about the ways they say plastic — from its production to its disposal — has harmed their communities and their health.
Smith-White describes his home in Canada’s Ontario as a “petrochemical valley” and blames production of plastic for a string of leukaemia deaths in Aamjiwnaang, his community of around 2,000 people from the Chippewa Indigenous group.
“We are too small of a population for cancer studies to be effective,” he said, adding that “we don’t have the money for that”.
But his message to negotiators is that plastic causes harm, a position backed by a coalition of scientists attending the talks.
“Known and emerging health hazards constitute a serious and evolving global health concern,” they warned ahead of the negotiations.
Near Smith-White’s village Sarnia are factories run by industrial giants — Imperial Oil, Shell, Suncor Energy among others — handling chemicals needed to produce plastic.
INEOS, one of the top producers of styrene — a component in polystyrene plastic — said earlier this year it would shutter its factory near Sarnia by 2026.
Smith-White said his community had long “pushed for better regulations” over chemicals in water sources but also more recently benzene emissions in the air.
“We did not close INEOS,” he said. “They decided that it was not worth putting money into that plant to bring it up to the standards that we pushed for.”
– ‘Public health crisis’ –
First Nations groups from petrol-producing US states such as Texas and Alaska, and Indigenous peoples from Australia to Latin America have used their time in Busan to describe harms linked to plastic.
They range from the growing incidence of once-rare diseases to mountain villages being progressively buried in plastic.
“It’s everywhere in the streets, around the houses,” said Prem Singh, part of the Indigenous Tharu group, of his village in western Nepal.
“We have no dump site” and the community’s cattle and goats are eating the plastic waste, he told AFP.
Pamela Miller, executive director of the NGO Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT) warned of a “public health crisis.”
“We see a cancer crisis in many of the Indigenous communities we work with in Alaska,” she told AFP, linking the problem to the extraction of fossil fuels used to make plastic, and the growing consumption of plastic among the people.
Microplastics and nanoplastics have been found in the human body — including inside lungs, blood and brains.
While it is not yet clear exactly how harmful they are, numerous studies have linked their presence to a range of health problems.
Out of the more than 16,000 chemicals used or found in commercial plastic, more than a quarter are considered potentially hazardous to human health, according to the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty.
The draft deal in Busan — which negotiators failed to agree on — describes plastic pollution as a ‘serious environmental and human health problem’
– Copyright AFP Anthony WALLACE
Linked health concerns include “infertility, obesity and non-communicable diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and many cancers”, the group says.
– ‘Chemicals inside us’ –
The draft deal in Busan describes plastic pollution as a “serious environmental and human health problem”.
But a dedicated section to health remains mostly bare, only offering a choice between excising the section and strengthening language on health elsewhere, or deciding its content at a later date.
By Sunday night, negotiators had failed to reach an agreement on the treaty, with the chair calling for additional time for discussions.
Among the sticking issues were on setting targets for reducing plastic production, or for phasing out chemicals known or believed to be harmful to human health.
Some countries accuse a handful of mostly oil-producing nations, such as Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, of obstructing the UN process.
Some petrol-producing states have reportedly said in negotiations that plastic is not dangerous for health, and say existing bans on harmful chemicals are sufficient.
But Sarah Dunlop, a neuroscientist who heads the plastic and human health division of the Minderoo Foundation in Australia, is not convinced.
“If chemical regulations were working as some people say, why should we find these chemicals inside us?” she said.
Linked health concerns include “infertility, obesity and non-communicable diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and many cancers”, the group says.
– ‘Chemicals inside us’ –
The draft deal in Busan describes plastic pollution as a “serious environmental and human health problem”.
But a dedicated section to health remains mostly bare, only offering a choice between excising the section and strengthening language on health elsewhere, or deciding its content at a later date.
By Sunday night, negotiators had failed to reach an agreement on the treaty, with the chair calling for additional time for discussions.
Among the sticking issues were on setting targets for reducing plastic production, or for phasing out chemicals known or believed to be harmful to human health.
Some countries accuse a handful of mostly oil-producing nations, such as Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, of obstructing the UN process.
Some petrol-producing states have reportedly said in negotiations that plastic is not dangerous for health, and say existing bans on harmful chemicals are sufficient.
But Sarah Dunlop, a neuroscientist who heads the plastic and human health division of the Minderoo Foundation in Australia, is not convinced.
“If chemical regulations were working as some people say, why should we find these chemicals inside us?” she said.
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