Positions that seem irreconcilable that the members of the 184 countries trying to develop the first world treaty against plastic pollution were unable to give birth to a text in Geneva, Switzerland.
But for Michael Bonser, assistant deputy minister delegate for environment and climate change canada, is better to have a treaty than to have a bad treaty.
“We knew that not to sign a bad treaty was better than simply obtaining a weak treaty” and “I will be honest with you, I believe that some countries (whose positions differ from that of Canada) believed that we would accept any treaty just to show that we do something, but they were wrong,” the Canadian negotiator said at a press conference on Friday morning.
Since the start of the negotiations, almost three years ago, a majority coalition of countries proposed that the final treatise on plastic pollution included a limit to the quantity of plastic that companies can produce.
But the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia and India were opposed to any ceiling on virgin plastics.
The reuters news agency even reported that the Trump administration has sent memos to a handful of countries urging them to reject a treaty that would impose limits on plastic production.
Asked about this “memo”, Michael Bonser replied:
“If this memo existed, I have never seen it. But we knew full well that the question of plastic production and its cap would be extremely complex for the United States, but this was not only the case for them. Many countries, from many regions, have suggested that the cap of production was going too far. ”
For the United States, added the Canadian negotiator, the inclusion of a plastic production ceiling in the treaty was indeed a “red line” not to be crossed.
The powerful oil and gas producing countries, such as the United States, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia, and representatives of the plastic industry who participated in negotiations, wanted a treaty focused on waste management and reuse rather than attacking the problem at the root.
The rest is uncertain
After the failure of the negotiations on Friday, the delegates did not share any immediate plan to take over the discussions.
It is not clear therefore, if there will be, in the short term, other negotiations on plastic pollution and when and where they will take place.
Canada believes that “it is necessary to continue the difficult negotiations relating to this issue” and “not only with the countries with which we agree,” said Michael Bonser.
Ana Rocha, director of Gaia, a network of environmental groups present in dozens of countries, praised the decision of the countries which refused to sign a bad treaty.
“We support the ambitious majority that refused to retreat and accept a treaty that is lacking in respect to countries truly engaged in this process and betrays our communities and our planet,” she wrote in a statement.
Once again, according to the director of Gaia, “the negotiations failed, hampered by a chaotic and biased process which even left the countries most committed to be heard”.
Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, said that, despite the difficulties and disappointment, “we must recognize that significant progress has been made”.
This process will not stop, she added, but it is too early to say how long it will take to reach a treaty.
A scourge
Humanity produces more than 430 million tonnes of plastic each year and this equipment, derived from oil, is made so present in our lives and in the environment that microplastics have even been found in the placenta of healthy women, according to a study recently published in the Toxicological Science newspaper.
Before the negotiations taking place in Switzerland, the medical journal The Lancet published a summary of certain studies according to which the materials used in plastics cause many diseases “at each stage of the life cycle of plastics and at each stage of human life”.
