From Monday, the last round of negotiations on a global plastic pollution agreement will start – after two years of meetings.
The countries that are submitting are in deep disagreement about whether the agreement should limit plastic production and certain chemicals, and even whether the agreement should be adopted by majority or consensus.
The negotiations, which are currently taking place in Busan in South Korea, are a moment of truth, said the head of the UN Environment Programme, Inger Andersen, earlier in November.
– Busan can and must mark the end of the negotiations, she insisted in response to speculation that the process could be extended.
Massive problem
– Everyone wants an end to plastic pollution. Now it is up to the member states to deliver, she continued.
There is little disagreement about the size of the problem. In 2019, the world produced around 460 million tonnes of plastic, a figure that has doubled since 2000, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Plastic production is expected to triple by 2060.
More than 90 percent of the plastic is not recycled, and over 20 million tonnes end up in nature, often after only a few minutes of use. Microplastics have been found in the deepest parts of the ocean, the world’s highest mountain peaks and in virtually every part of the human body.
Plastic also accounts for around three percent of the global emissions of greenhouse gases, largely because it is produced from fossil fuel.
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Two pages
Some countries, including the so-called High Ambiton Coalition (HAC), a group of many African, Asian and European countries, want to negotiate the entire life cycle of plastics – i.e. limiting production, redesigning products so that they can be reused and recycling.
On the other side are countries that want the focus to be only on waste, largely oil producers such as Russia and Saudi Arabia.
HAC wants binding global targets to reduce production and warned ahead of the Busan negotiations that “vested interests” should not stand in the way of an agreement.
The disagreements have thwarted four rounds of negotiations so far, and spawned a cumbersome 70-page document. The diplomat leading the negotiations has drawn up an alternative document – on 17 pages – which extracts the essence of the delegations’ views and will take the negotiations further.
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The US and China are the key
However, the biggest problems remain unsolved. Critics believe the alternative document is not ambitious enough and will not be able to deliver an effective agreement.
And key to any deal will be the US and China, which have not openly chosen sides.
At the same time, some plastic producers are pushing for the focus to be on waste management and reuse, and warn that production caps will lead to “unintended consequences”.
– Expectations are high for Busan, says Eirik Lindebjerg, head of global plastic policy at the environmental organization WWF. He tells AFP that a majority of countries already support binding rules throughout the plastic life cycle.
– It is now up to the leaders of these countries to deliver the agreement the world needs, and not let a handful of unwilling countries or industrial interests stop this.
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