The fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) came to a close in Busan, South Korea, without an agreement, on Sunday 1 December. Suspended, the session will resume in Spring 2025.
“I deeply regret that no agreement has been reached on a new global treaty on plastics. If the status quo continues, plastic production will triple by 2060”, declared the European Commissioner for the Environment, Jessika Roswall, on Monday 2 December.
The main areas of disagreement were “reducing the production of primary plastic polymers, bans and restrictions on chemicals of concern in plastic products and problematic and avoidable plastic products”, according to the European Commission.
The first historic ‘Plastics Treaty’ was to emerge with these negotiations. It was to legislate on the entire life cycle of plastics. Faced with opposition from the main oil-producing countries (see EUROPE 13535/7), proposals for measures ranging from improving the design of plastics to improving waste management, including the introduction of extended producer responsibility, were not adopted.
The objective of “ending plastic pollution” no longer featured in the latest draft compromise, even though it had been a sine qua non condition of the countries in the “high-ambition coalition”, limiting the ambition of the text to the protection of “human health and the environment from pollution by plastics”.
Numerous divergent scenarios still coexisted in this latest compromise submitted by the Chair of the Intergovernmental Committee, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, on Sunday 1 December, including a text without an Article aimed at reducing the production of plastics (see EUROPE 13535/7).
On Monday, the European Commission stated that “an overwhelming majority of more than 100 countries share the EU’s ambitions” and that this number was still growing. This “high-ambition coalition” includes the EU, the UK, Canada and many countries in Africa, Latin America and the Pacific.
The EU, for its part, intends to continue “leading by example” in the implementation of its legislation on single-use plastics, eco-design for sustainable products, extended producer responsibility and waste management, in particular.
See the latest draft compromise for a ‘Plastics Treaty’: https://aeur.eu/f/elk (Original version French by Florent Servia)