No deal yet as clock ticks on UN plastic pollution talks in South Korea

In Busan, South Korea

Espen Barth Eide, President of the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, gavelled the making of a historic draft resolution in Nairobi after countries agreed it was time to come up with a global treaty to end plastic pollution.

Delegates from more than 175 countries clapped with a sense of enthusiasm.

At the time, a deadline of two years was set to allow countries to negotiate and agree what clauses would be included in the treaty before its ratification. It is 2024, and the deadline is here.

Should the treaty be passed in Busan, South Korea, history will be made. Delegates here compare it to the famous Paris Agreement.

On Friday, there were jitters on whether the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee chair Louis Vayas Valdivieso would send out the first draft of the agreed clauses. A few minutes to 4pm, the first non-paper was sent to delegates and reactions of both hope and disappointment were written on delegates’ faces.

On Saturday, delegates had informal meetings to discuss the chair’s draft to ensure that the final outcome points to one goal—ending plastic pollution.

National Environment Management Authority Environmental Education, Information and Public Participation Director Ayub Macharia told the Nation that the non-paper is “not bad” adding that it is still work in progress.

The 24-page document is still bracketed, meaning that some issues have not been agreed on by all parties and should be resolved before the final paper is adopted.

Some of the articles that have not been agreed on include Article 5, which deals with the production and design of plastics—a contentious issue that civil societies on Sunday said should be overhauled, urging parties to rethink the aspect of plastics production.

Anthony Agotha, Climate and Environment Ambassador for the European Union External Action Service, said the time for the world’s polluting freedom is over.

“We need those technologies on waste management as well as technology transfer, but mopping the floor when the tap is open is useless,” he said.

“This is not about demonising plastic; we love plastic because it makes our planes and cars lighter, but we have to get rid of the polluting plastic that is basically choking the oceans and ruining our health.”

Hellen Kahaso, Project Lead of Pan-African Plastic Project at Greenpeace Africa, said that the first non-paper is a weak attempt by the chair to agree to a treaty and that lacks most elements that will make it ambitious and binding.

“We are happy that there is an article on production, and we hope that that will stay in the final treaty, but we see that there are things like chemicals of concern that have not been featured, which is a big red flag. We hope that the treaty will call for a deliberate ban for chemicals that have been proven to be hazardous,” she said.

Ms Kahaso explained that one of Africa’s wishes on finance has not been explicitly tabled in the non-paper.

All 55 countries in Africa, through the Africa Group on Negotiators, had put out a conference paper on finance that had been backed by 126 member states outside Africa.

“We hope that the chair will be able to incorporate this so that we have enough resources for developing nations to implement this treaty once it is ratified,” she said.

Other contentious issues are around supply and production, where most countries want significant calls for production reduction, but the draft paper acknowledges sovereign rights of states as long as production is done sustainably.

“We do not want to come out of Busan with a waste management treaty. There is pressure in the room to finalise and come up with a deal. We don’t want just a deal, but we want a deal that will end plastic pollution,” said Ms Kahaso.

Panama’s Head of Delegation, Juan Monterrey, called out petrochemical industries, which vouch for recycling, saying that it is a form of greenwashing.

“Let’s be clear, recycling was an invention of the industry itself to perpetuate itself in power and make profit on the backs of our health and that of our ecosystem,” he said.