The 185 countries meeting in Switzerland at the initiative of the UN failed to agree on a binding text to combat the growing scourge of plastic pollution. “We will not have a treaty on plastic pollution here in Geneva,” summarized the representative of Norway during a plenary session at dawn. “After ten days of negotiations, I am disappointed and angry,” commented the French Minister for Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, deploring the absence of any “tangible results.”
While the summit was extended due to a lack of agreement on Thursday evening, a new compromise text was proposed overnight in an attempt to secure the signing of an international treaty. However, the heads of delegation, meeting in an informal session, failed to “reach a consensus,” according to delegates from India and Uruguay. “The text presented tonight represents progress, even if it still contains many weak points. In any case, I regret that it could not constitute our new basis for negotiation,” declared the French minister during the closing plenary session.
The Uncertain Future of the Negotiations
Uganda has requested a new negotiating session at a later date, and European Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall considered that Geneva had established “a good basis” for resuming negotiations. “We must now quickly resume negotiations based on the real progress made in recent days,” Agnès Pannier-Runacher echoed this sentiment, while calling for “learning the lessons” from the negotiation process, which has so far been “so chaotic.”
Ecuadorian diplomat Luis Vayas Valdivieso, who already chaired the negotiations during the failed previous diplomatic round in Busan, South Korea, at the end of 2024, is expected to give a brief press conference, according to UN officials. His method and the negotiation process were severely criticized throughout the Geneva diplomatic round, but often anonymously.
Deep divisions remain between the two sides that have clashed over the issue. The “ambitious” countries, including the EU, Canada, Australia, and many Latin American, African, and island countries, want to cleanse the planet of the plastic that is beginning to plague it and affect human health, and, above all, reduce global plastic production. Opposing them are primarily oil-producing countries that reject any restrictions on the production of hydrocarbons that underpin the plastics industry and any ban on dangerous molecules or additives.
The Gulf States in the Crosshairs
“The countries that have implemented this obstructionist strategy are well-known: they are the fossil fuel-producing countries, the Gulf States,” Agnès Pannier-Runacher lamented on franceinfo, also accusing the United States of not having been “helpful” in these negotiations.
