The Swiss meeting was organized for lack of agreement during the previous session in Busan (Korea), which was to be the last.
The United Nations Conference on the Ocean held in Nice last June, enabled the supporting countries of an ambitious treaty to count each other, and to maintain pressure before the opening of the Inc 5.2, the second part of the fifth session of the intergovernmental negotiation committee on plastic pollution. It will be held at the United Nations Office in Geneva, from August 5 to 14, and is supposed to be the last. As was the previous one in Busan, last December.
In June, 95 states out of the 170 involved in negotiations signed “the call of Nice for an ambitious treaty on plastics”. The signatories consider that “the adoption of a global objective of reducing production and consumption of primary plastic polymers”, the establishment of a “legally binding obligation to gradually eliminate the most problematic plastic products and worrying chemicals” or even the improvement, by a binding obligation, of the design of plastic products “, are necessary conditions to” achieve an agreement from what our citizens claim ”.
These objectives also correspond to the mandate of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) set by resolution 5/14, adopted in March 2022, before discussions begin. According to this resolution, negotiations must make it possible to adopt a legally binding international instrument to put an end to plastic pollution, “including in the marine environment”, and on the scale of the life cycle of the plastic, of the extraction of the raw materials necessary for its production, to its elimination.
China, a key country in negotiations
“The problem is that the UNEP now seems to want a text at all costs, even if it means drawing these ambitions downwards,” deplores Henri Bourgeois-Costa, responsible for advocating on the issues related to plastics at the Tara Ocean Foundation, which benefits from the UN observer status and participates in his work. Because from session in session, two irreconcilable camps oppose: that of “Willings”, supporters of an ambitious treaty on the scale of the life cycle, whose ranks are growing, and that of “liked”, recalcitrants who want to protect their petroleum and petrochemical industries, in the forefront of which Russia, India and the Arab-and Gulf countries Saudi Arabia.
“Their position could be reinforced by the unilateral attitude of the United States,” says Henri Bourgeois-Costa, who recalls in passing that they sign and ratify few international treaties (“and apply them even less”), and produce mainly for their domestic market. Hope could paradoxically come from China, the world’s leading world producer of plastic, which has been carrying out an “ecological civilization” project for a few years, and whose president Xí Jìnpíng has repeatedly underlined the need to reduce global plastic production, which reaches 460 million tonnes each year and could triple by 2060 in the event of status quo, according to the figures of the UNDP and (OECD).
“The reduction in production must be at the center of all the efforts and at the heart of the treaty,” says Henri Bourgeois-Costa. “You have to mourn the consensus, which the UNEP wishes, but which carries the risk of a soft and without content text. We must go to the vote, with the ambitious countries, which must go to the offensive ”. Several ministerial delegations are announced at the end of the negotiations. “Political presence is always a strong signal,” comments the advocacy manager of the Tara Ocean Foundation. The French Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, is expected to travel to Geneva.
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