There will be no treatise against plastic pollution in Geneva. After an observation of bitter failure for the environment and for diplomacy, the United Nations tried on Friday to seek a way out.
The representative of Norway, co -president of a group of countries who defended a treaty ambitious
To protect the environment and human health in the face of the growing danger of plastic pollution, announced it at the opening of a plenary meeting of the 185 governments gathered for 10 days: We will not have a treatise on plastic pollution here in Geneva.
Two different versions
The president of the negotiation committee (CNI5-2), the Ecuadorian Luis Vayas Valdivieso, had presented in 24 hours two different versions of a compromise proposal, the last of which in the night of August 14 to 15 in a feverish and worried atmosphere.
But the delegation managers gathered in exceptional session at dawn did not succeed in agreeing despite a sensitive evolution in the formulation.
This text, which included even more than a hundred points to be clarified, constituted a acceptable negotiation basis
had indicated two distinct government sources interviewed by theAFP Right after putting the text online on the UN site.
During the last session, he did not consensus – the cardinal rule of theHim -, and the whole process ended up being adjourned, after a session which had already been extended beyond its limits.
Many delegates have expressed their disappointment before the failure of the negotiations, the representative of the Fiji believing that this setback weakens multilateralism
.
A handful of countries, guided by short -term financial interests and not by the health of their populations and the sustainability of their economy, have blocked the adoption of an ambitious treaty against plastic pollution.
For representatives of the Pacific islands or elsewhere, some of whom took three days to arrive in Geneva, this failure means that, Without external help, millions of tonnes of plastic waste will continue to be thrown into our oceans, affecting our ecosystems, our food security, our life and our cultures
deplored the representative of the Tuvalu archipelago.
Two irreconcilable camps
Since starting the process in 2022, an increasingly bitter trenches war has opposed two apparently irreconcilable camps.
THE ambitious
including the European Union, Canada, Australia, many countries in Latin America, Africa and islands, which wanted to reduce global plastic production and control molecules most concern for health, in order to reduce pollution.
Opposite, essentially oil countries which refuse any constraint on the production of hydrocarbons at the base of the plastic industry and any ban on molecules or additives problematic for health.
These countries did not bear that negotiations relate to all the lifespan
From plastic, that is to say from the substance derived from oil to its state of waste, through the objects it is used to manufacture.
They waged a shelf war to obtain the change in the scope of the negotiation and the text of the treaty, fixed in 2022 at the United Nations General Assembly.
A ceiling on production, A red line
impossible to cross
During the negotiations, Canadians, whose work to have the rights of indigenous nations in Geneva recognized, quickly understood that the question of the cap of production was not likely to end up in the final text.
To resolve the dead end and find common ground with petrochemical states, Canada has rather pleaded for measures covering the entire life cycle of plastic and sustainable production and consumption approaches […] Science -based
the negotiators explained on Friday. However, they did not want to advance on the next step after this failure.
This negotiation session is not not closed
said Mr. Vayas Valdiso to theAFPand a future session will therefore be a New part of CNI5
.
The secretariat will work to find a date and a place, where CNI5-3 will take place
he added.
Making against bad fortune good heart, the experienced diplomat Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNP), said that the 10 days of negotiations have made it possible to understand in more detail the “red lines”
of each country.
We did not know them as well as today. […] It’s a very important step
she said. We live in a complex political and geopolitical period. And in addition multilateralism is under tension.
Under the eye of representatives of the petrochemical industries present in the corridors, countries had already failed to produce a common text in Busan, South Korea in late 2024.
The subject is all the more important since the planet has produced more plastic since 2000 than during the previous 50 years. And the trend accelerates. If nothing is done, the current production, of some 450 million tonnes per year, should triple by 2060, according to the forecasts of theOECD. Less than 10 % are recycled.
Greenpeace as well as others ONG immediately targeted oil and chemical industries.
The plastic crisis is accelerating and the petrochemical industry is determined to sacrifice us for the benefit of its short -term interests.
THE ONGwhich were to speak publicly at the end of the session could not be expressed, after an imperative request for adjourning on the part of the representative of the United States John Thompson, and that of Kuwait, eager to finish the session as quickly after a sleepless night.