Events this August raise a critical question: Can the United Nations process to combat global plastic pollution ever reach agreement? Or is some other way forward necessary?

The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC) set a goal in 2022 of a legally binding treaty by the end of 2024. But the INC missed its own deadline this month. Negotiators from 184 nations strived at the 10-day summit in Geneva, Switzerland, only to yet again fail to even come close to reaching consensus on a treaty draft.

Some delegates and observers left in frustration after the 6^th official INC summit (known as INC-5.2) and wondered if the process will ever work. Others cited incremental progress and looked forward with some hope to another negotiating session at a yet-to-be determined time and place.

Not only do numerous treaty specifics still need to be worked out, but countries can’t even agree on the basics: Should the agreement be binding or voluntary? Should it encompass the full life cycle of plastic from creation to disposal, limit production and ban some toxic chemicals, or should it just focus almost exclusively on reuse and recycling?

The High Ambition Coalition (HAC), now totaling more than 75 nations, seeks a legally binding, cradle-to-grave treaty that reduces production and consumption and provides an adequately financed enforcement mechanism.

“The negotiations on the global plastics treaty are not just any technical debate. It’s about deciding whether we’re going to stop pollution at its source, regulating the entire life cycle of plastic, or whether we’re going to condemn our communities and nature to continue breathing, eating and drinking poison,” said Panamanian delegate Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, whose comment in Spanish is translated here.

All significant progress was blocked by a treaty negotiation process rule requiring consensus, with the so-called Like-Minded Group (LMG) of petrostates and major plastics producers, including the U.S., opting for a voluntary agreement limiting the treaty’s scope to waste management.

The Iranian delegation justified the LMG’s position by suggesting the final accord needs to “address the merits of plastic together with inefficient plastic waste management,” and to recognize that “plastics are fundamental materials for sustainable economic growth.”

Meanwhile, plastic waste continues fouling Earth’s land, water and air — creating a global human health crisis and threatening wildlife. Planet-wide production and use is expected to increase by 70% between 2020 and 2040 under current policies, while a treaty could slash that business-as-usual rate by 96%, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Breaking the logjam with further talks?

“It is clear that divides remain regarding core issues on production, plastic products, finance and voting,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme at the close of INC-5.2 negotiations. “The world needs more time to come to full agreement on these critical issues.” She and the INC committee left Geneva without outlining next steps, scheduling a next summit, or providing a timeline, citing the need for time to reflect.

“Trying to do the same thing over and over again is not working,” said WWF vice president Erin Simon, noting that it took more than eight months just to get from inconclusive INC 5.1 to inconclusive INC 5.2. So, she assumes it will take until early next year before another meeting.

Plastics producers claim to feel just as dispirited. The Plastics Industry Association issued a statement “expressing disappointment that [INC-5.2] failed to produce meaningful progress toward a global plastics agreement.”

And as the stalled U.N. process goes on and on, news reporting falls off. “You felt media fatigue,” said WWF spokesperson Susan McCarthy. The Associated Press covered INC-5.2, as did the trade press and environmental websites. The New York Times ran one story, “but there wasn’t as much TV coverage; there wasn’t as much mainstream” reporting, McCarthy noted.

The United States, a petrostate and top plastics producer aligned with the LMG, has never supported a binding life-cycle approach limiting production and banning the most toxic plastics ingredients. After the summit, the U.S. State Department issued a one-paragraph release saying in part: “We did not support prescriptive top-down regulatory approaches that will stifle innovation and drive consumer inflation across the U.S. economy and all over the world.” The release concludes: “For further information, please contact mediainquiries@state.gov.” Mongabay contacted the address, only to receive a reply from spokesperson Drew Bailey saying “we have nothing more to add.”

At present, the parties appear to want to keep talking. While many HAC negotiators said they felt frustrated by the INC first chair’s treaty draft, which focused on voluntary agreements that appealed only to the plastic producing states, the “second draft in Geneva was marginally better,” WWF’s Simon said.

But bleary-eyed delegates didn’t get much chance to examine that second draft, as it was released at 3 a.m. on Aug. 13, after more than a week of deadlocked talks. The revised version added new details, dealing with plastic “ghost” (abandoned) fishing gear and chemical production, not addressed in the first draft. “It could be the basis for the next session but [negotiators] didn’t formalize it,” Simon noted.

Other paths forward

There’s also a possibility that HAC members, fed up with INC delays, could pursue other avenues to reach agreement, such as going directly to the U.N. General Assembly where they could add a plastics regulatory provision to an existing U.N. treaty, such as the Basel Convention on Hazardous Waste.

Or the HAC could forge ahead with a U.N. agreement by a coalition of the willing with an accord established on a regional or worldwide level, as was done with the Ottawa Treaty to ban land mines; that accord was signed by 166 nations, but not based on consensus by all countries. (It’s worth noting that many of today’s LMG-affiliated nations — including Russia and the U.S. — which have so far rejected a tough binding plastics treaty, also never signed on to the Ottawa Treaty.)

Or at the extreme, nations could take a vote outside the INC. For instance, the U.N. Environment Assembly allows for a majority vote rather than requiring consensus. “As long as a small minority of petrostates is allowed [a] veto, there is not going to be an agreement,” said Madison Dennis, project manager for the Plastic Pollution Coalition, an NGO.

“In international law, any group of countries can come to a legally binding agreement. Usually, it is done through the U.N. but it doesn’t have to [be],” said international environmental attorney Amy Youngman. But, she added, ”we would need large producing states to participate in that process.”

“Compromise between high- and low-ambition countries is never entirely out of the question, but with each round of talks, it has become harder to envision,” said Dharmesh Shah, senior consulting campaigner for the Center for International Environment Law.

International fallout from the stalled treaty process?

The repercussions from the deadlocked U.N. plastics treaty negotiations could ripple outward, shifting the balance of international relations and alliances. The U.S., for example, now finds itself aligned with the position of its traditional foes, including Russia, Iran and Cuba; and in opposition to traditional allies, including the European Union and U.K. The U.S. effort to limit China’s influence in the Pacific could also suffer, as the United States opposes HAC-aligned Pacific island nations.

Most LMG states remain unyielding in their positions, with Iran opposed to production limits because “INC meetings [are] not the proper place to address trade issues.” Saudi Arabia noted that a “ban on certain plastics may result in an increased demand for alternative materials, some of which are not easily recyclable.”

Ultimately, differences between the HAC and LMG may be insurmountable, but some remain hopeful and want to keep talking.

Deborah Mlongo Barasa, a delegate from HAC member Kenya, noted on her Facebook page that in Geneva, “I held a productive bilateral meeting with Mr. Abdulrahman AlGwaiz, Head of Delegation from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Our discussions focused on strengthening cooperation towards a global, legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution. We explored practical areas for collaboration, emphasized the need for an ambitious and inclusive agreement and acknowledged the urgency of addressing plastic pollution in ways that reflect the diverse realities of member states.”

A few plastics-producing nations showed cracks in their position. At the closing plenary, China’s delegate talked of “stressing the need to provide technology transfer and financial support to developing countries” and called the INC-5.2 summit only a “temporary setback” that “laid an important foundation for future international cooperation.” China also shifted its position to address chemicals of concern, a provision other plastic producing states don’t want to see in a treaty. Russia, another LMG member, stayed relatively silent in Geneva, Simon noted. “In the past, Russia was quite vocal,” she said.

The Alliance of Small Island States, which represents 39 archipelagic nations subjected to waves of plastic pollution fouling their shores and fisheries, issued a statement expressing sorrow over the lack of summit progress, but noted that even “among members with different views, we saw flexibility and common ground emerge when there was space for genuine engagement.”

INC-5.2 ended in deadlock with tired delegates on both sides heading home with no victory to celebrate. But it appears all plan to return to the U.N. table — or some other table — somewhere, sometime in the future. And all seem to agree the plastics pollution emergency demands they act.

Banner image: A protestor sums up INC-5.2’s failure with the slogan: “Consensus kills ambition.” The U.N. plastics treaty process has so far required consensus by all nations, which has proved to be an unachievable goal as the High Ambition Coalition of nations conflicts with plastics-producing nations. Image by © Markus Winkler/WWF.

As UN plastic treaty talks face possible deadlock, what are the ways forward?

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