Plastics treaty talks ‘not in a good place'; search is on for path forward

After the last round of plastics treaty talks in Kenya ended in a stalemate, and with less than a year left to complete negotiations, advocates for an ambitious agreement are calling for stepped-up action to avoid what they see as a weak treaty.

"I think we all feel 2024 is such an important year when it comes to negotiations, and we're not in a good place," said Kirsten Schuijt, director general of WWF International, speaking at a Jan. 17 online panel from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"From our perspective, we need to think really smartly and sharply about how do we use the next negotiations to keep a very practical approach, knowing that if we wait for a treaty that will be a consensus treaty that will engage all the countries, it's going to be a watered down and vague treaty," she said. "That's unfortunately the stage we have reached."

Two panels at Davos looked at the current state of treaty talks and what to expect at the next. The fourth of five rounds is planned for the Canadian capital of Ottawa in late April. What would be the final round of negotiations is slated for South Korea in November, with a diplomatic signing session planned for early 2025.

The Kenya round ended in a difficult spot, with countries unable to reach agreement on how to have important technical work ahead of the Canada round. Strong differences remained between oil-producing states and other countries over how to move forward, with some observers saying those problems risked putting the treaty in jeopardy.

Others on the panels, like Unilever CEO Hein Schumacher, said the International Negotiating Committee for the treaty, called the INC, needs to move faster.

"We need the INC process to progress," said Schumacher, who was also speaking for the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, a group of consumer goods makers, retailers and financial institutions. "It is progressing from what I'm hearing. I'm looking forward to [treaty talks] in Ottawa, but I have to say a bit more speed is required."

The head of the United Nations Environment Programme, Inger Andersen, said talks will be a "hard slog" but they should aim for a more detailed treaty that takes a firmer, more regulatory approach, like earlier global environmental agreements that have phased down ozone-depleting chemicals and mercury.

UNEP administers the INC process.

"This is not — if I have anything to do with it — a framework treaty," Andersen said. "That's not what this is about. Most of the other treaties UNEP has under its belt and that we are hosting are regulatory in nature."

She pointed to a recently completed United Nations treaty on chemicals management, finalized in September 2023, that will impact the plastics treaty.

The new chemicals pact takes a more regulatory approach because it will start to phase out some chemicals by 2030 or 2035. That will mirror calls in the plastics treaty to strongly address chemicals of concern within polymers, Andersen said.

She said some countries "you may see throwing spanners in the work" are doing it to protect domestic oil and fossil fuel industries, but others are concerned more about domestic jobs.

"We want them all included as best we can, but that cannot be on the basis of a compromise of ambition," she said. "This is very much a treaty that's been born out of the Global South."

A plastics industry representative, Dow Inc. Chairman and CEO Jim Fitterling, told the Davos audience that the industry is prepared for some regulatory requirements, like extended producer responsibility laws and national standards around recycled content, recycling and packaging.

"We're heavily engaged in trying to make sure we do reach a global agreement that can be legally binding," he said. "That means a change in the way we do things that's transformational. Circularity is a big part of that.

"Reuse of materials, different forms, getting design standards up front on refillable, reusable types of packaging," Fitterling said. "More recycled content mandates, so that can be done at a national level."

But he also told the audience that plastics have grown and proven popular because of their value in areas like protecting food, manufacturing medical devices, or making automobiles lighter and more fuel efficient.

"I think the other thing that's critically important — and Inger mentioned it — is the importance of science to this," Fitterling said. "Life cycle assessment is critically important."

The beneficial uses of plastics was a point that UNEP's Andersen echoed as she called for more work on reducing single-use materials, addressing health impacts of plastics pollution and chemicals in plastics, as well as helping developing countries have the money to address plastics pollution.

"It is absolutely clear ... that which can be replaced by something else, eliminate it," Andersen said. "And that should lead to a reduction of that which ends up in the environment.

"But last I checked we also want windmills and EV vehicles and lighter planes," she said. "And lighter planes are often made from things that have plastic. So let's just be careful exactly how we frame this."

Unilever's Schumacher also said consumer product makers want a treaty that lays out clear rules in areas like recycling, product design standards, infrastructure to support reusable packaging and extended producer responsibility to help pay for the transition.

"There will be a bit of pain, and as Unilever, we are accepting that, if it's a level playing field and if the funds are effectively used to resolve the problem," Schumacher said.

He also said Unilever needs a good plastics treaty to help reach its climate targets.

"What some people forget, our goals are very much intertwined, so when we chase out climate goals of greenhouse gas emissions reduction, we will never make them if we don't solve the plastics issue," Schumacher said. "We would miss out on more than 10 percent of our climate goals if we don't solve the plastics issue."

Looking ahead, countries, companies and groups are preparing for the next INC session in Canada in April.

The business coalition that Unilever is part of, for example, released five policy briefs on Jan. 19, and groups were assessing a revised draft of treaty language that INC administrators and UNEP released in late December 2023. Reactions to that draft suggest more of the "hard slog" ahead that Andersen noted.

The Ocean Conservancy, for example, said in a written statement that the latest draft included positives like more mentions of human health impacts and microplastics. But it said those changes were outnumbered by updates it sees as weakening treaty language, including in an area that has been important to some countries and environmental groups — limiting production of plastic — but that has been strongly opposed by some other nations and by the plastics industry.

"It was alarming to see the number of options added that would weaken or remove targets to reduce plastic production at the source," said Felipe Victoria, senior manager, multilateral affairs, international plastics at Ocean Conservancy. "If we are serious about confronting the plastics pollution crisis, we must ensure that the most ambitious provisions are adopted in the final plastics treaty."