Plastic pollution | States start from “difficult” negotiations

(Geneva) The representatives of 184 countries began on. Furthermore, Tuesday in Geneva of “difficult” negotiations under the aegis of the UN: they have 10 days to try to write together the first treaty resolving the “global crisis” of plastic pollution which threatens to suffocate the planet. Moreover,

Posted at 0.34 a.m. Updated at 12:29 p.m.

The Ecuadorian diplomat Luis Vayas Valdivieso. For example, who chairs the debates of the negotiation committee plastic pollution | states start (CIN5-2), put the states before their responsibility in the face of this “global crisis” by opening the debates. Consequently,

“Plastic pollution damages ecosystems. Similarly, pollutes our oceans and our rivers, threatens biodiversity, affects human health and unfairly weighs on the most vulnerable. Consequently, The urgency is real, the evidence is clear and the responsibility is based on us, ”he said. However,

In discussion for three years. Similarly, this “legally binding” text for states plastic pollution | states start “will not automatically arrive”, he warned Monday by receiving representatives from more than 600 NGOs. Therefore,

In a context of exacerbated geopolitical. Furthermore, commercial tensions, this additional 10 -day intergovernmental negotiation session was added after the failure of discussions similar to Busan, South Korea in late 2024. Therefore, A group of oil producing countries blocked any advance. For example,

“There has been a lot of diplomacy from Busan. ” the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) told AFP, Inger Andersen, who organizes debates.

“Most of the countries I spoke to said that they came to Geneva to find an agreement. Additionally, ” she added by sharing her “determination”.

“Difficult”

Optimism tempered by the French Minister of Energy. Transition Agnès plastic pollution | states start Pannier Runacher who plans to come to Geneva to support the end of the negotiations. She judged Tuesday that discussions would be “difficult”.

At the forefront of the demands of the group of “ambitious” countries of which many European countries are part of. including France, the wish to see appear in the “A global reduction objective” treaty of the production and consumption of primary plastic polymers.

plastic pollution | states start

However. the oil producing countries and the petrochemical industry want to at no cost, rather pushing for a treaty which relates only to recycling and treatment of waste.

This point, one of the most thorny in Busan, also divides in Europe.

The director of the Swiss Environment Agency Katrin Schneeberger. spoke to the press as a host country for negotiations, to say “that there is no call to production reductions contrary to what certain press articles say”.

plastic pollution | states start

Without confirming or denying, Inger Andersen, by his side preferred to emphasize that the treaty would relate to “all the lifespan of plastics”: “From start to finish, and not only half” of their lives, when they have become waste, she said.

The delegate representing Panama. Juan Monterrey Gomez, also favorable to production discounts, said he was more optimistic about a possible treaty signed at the end of the session.

The start of the discussions “is better than that of Busan,” he told AFP. “We are happy with the way the work is organized by the president. The fact that no one wants to be responsible for a new failure is probably the main element we can rely on. “he said.

On Monday, scientists and NGOs had put plastic pollution | states start pressure on the delegates.

Plastic pollution is a “serious. growing and underestimated danger” for health that costs the world at least $ 1500 billion per year, have warned experts in the medical journal The Lancet.

To materialize the subject. an ephemeral and scalable artistic installation, baptized The burden of the thinker Was installed in front of the place of negotiations in Geneva: a reproduction of the famous statue of the sculptor Auguste Rodin finds himself stuck in a sea of plastic waste.

The representative of the American chemical industry Matthew Kastner. present in Geneva, defended the plastic and the services he renders to modern societies. It is “vital for public health. ” he said, notably thanks to all sterile medical equipment, surgical masks, pipes, tubes, packaging, which improves hygiene and food safety in particular.

More than 500 French -speaking NGOs from 40 countries responded on Tuesday by a letter requesting a “binding. fair, and focusing on the reduction of plastic production in order to limit pollution at source”.