Busan, South Korea — One of the leading U.S. Democrats on plastics pollution issues, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, came to the plastics treaty talks in South Korea hoping to push countries toward a more ambitious agreement.
But after spending two days talking to participants on the eve of the latest round, opening Nov. 25 in Busan, Merkley said he sees the deliberations "struggling" to reach an effective agreement along the lines of what the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution, a group of 60-plus nations, wants.
"We've been holding meetings for the last two days here and hearing perspectives about the evolving situation," Merkley said in a Nov. 24 interview on the sidelines of the talks. "The core sense, if you put all that together, is that there's a possibility of an agreement, but probably one that will not rise to the standards the high ambition countries had hoped for."
Merkley, who led a Congressional delegation to the last round of talks in Canada in April, is apparently the only member of Congress in Busan.
He sees negotiators and stakeholders struggling with reaching an agreement that is strong enough and doesn't repeat the mistakes of the Paris climate accord, which he said lacked teeth and as a result the world's greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise.
"What I'm hearing is people are really struggling with the question as to whether an agreement or treaty that doesn't compel action, but at least starts and kind of embodies the conversation at the moment, is that a good foundation for moving forward In the future?" Merkley said.
"Or do you lock yourself into essentially the equivalent of the Paris framework, where everyone says 'Yes, we have a problem, and now go home and do your best,' and then nothing effective actually arises from that?"
The election of Donald Trump also has changed the calculus of the talks, he said.
"I would say the election has affected many parties, in terms of feeling like it gives a little more encouragement to accept a treaty that they might not have [been] accepted if [Kamala Harris] had won," Merkley said.
"I'm listening to all the folks we've been meeting with, and it has changed the conversation in the direction of maybe we, the high-ambition nations, should accept a more minimal treaty, because they anticipate that team Trump doesn't have much concern or interest in the challenges of plastic pollution," Merkley said.
Three days before the talks reopened, Merkley and three others in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate released a letter they sent to President Joe Biden's administration, urging it to support an agreement with enforceable measures to "reduce plastic production, phase out chemicals of concern and problematic and avoidable uses of plastics across the full life cycle."
That Nov. 22 letter, from Merkley and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., also urged the U.S. government to back a stronger treaty accepted by a majority of countries, rather than a weaker treaty that all parties signed on to.
In the interview in Busan, Merkley said he expects there to be pressure to reach an agreement in this round, considering the U.S. election.
"I would love to be able to say, 'I'm here to say you can still grab that high-admission vision,' but I didn't hear anybody in the last two days say that that's now still a possibility," Merkley said.
He sees less interest from treaty negotiators in extending the talks beyond the Busan round, which is the fifth and final planned meeting of the treaty's intergovernmental negotiating committee, into potentially a sixth and seventh meetings, to try to forge a stronger agreement.
"I think that pathway of continuing into the future has been dampened by the anticipated change in American leadership," Merkley said.
Merkley chaired a series of six high-profile hearings on plastics issues in the Senate in the last two years and is one of the lead authors of the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act and other legislation.
He gave an interview shortly before making a passionate speech to a Nov. 24 event organized by the World Wildlife Fund, which included treaty diplomats, environmental groups and businesses.
He told the crowd in a Busan hotel ballroom that rising concerns about microplastics in health and plastics pollution meant that negotiators should push for a detailed, ambitious treaty.
He said his conversations the previous days left him thinking there were "two basic options here" — either no agreement or an agreement with a modest list of chemicals and problematic plastic articles — "but on production of plastics, not much."
He said the more modest agreement could include some good elements, but he urged the audience to push for a third option, a more ambitious agreement.
In the interview before he spoke to the WWF event, he questioned whether there was a "a pathway to effective world action."
"There are often developments in the final phases of a treaty negotiation, where things are almost like out of sight or failing, and then people rally at the last minute," Merkley said. "There's still a possibility, I suppose, for a miracle, but I think it really would be a miracle at this point."