GENEVA — The world’s attempt to forge a plastics treaty billed as the most important environmental deal since the Paris climate accord is falling apart after three years of talks.

With negotiations due to end Thursday evening, 184 nations gathered in Geneva remain deadlocked over basic definitions, the scope of the treaty and whether to limit plastic production at all.

The working text contains nearly 1,500 brackets marking disagreements as of Monday evening — five times more than after the previous failed round in Busan, South Korea, in December. The document has grown by 13 pages since the last draft, adding discord to a negotiation process that appears increasingly rudderless.

After nearly three years of talks, countries have yet to agree on a definition of “plastic pollution” itself. Some countries are “even questioning whether the treaty is about plastic” at all, according to an open letter from leading environmental observers Monday.

“With four more days to go, we have more square brackets in the text than plastic in the sea. It’s time to get results,” European Union environment chief Jessika Roswall said. “We have to speed up negotiations and I call again on all parties to be constructive. We cannot miss this historic opportunity to land a global plastics treaty.”

Strong opposition to production limits at the negotiations, known as INC5.2, was expected, clearly telegraphed by plastic-producing nations ahead of this week’s meeting.

The deadlock pits a small group of leading petrochemical nations, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United States and their allies against more than 100 countries seeking mandatory production cuts for plastics, which are made from fossil fuels.

With Thursday’s deadline looming, the impasse has frustrated nations and civil society groups seeking action on a crisis affecting human health and the planet.

New talks, same problems 

The central battlefield since treaty talks began in 2022 is Article 6, which addresses plastic production caps. The article remains entirely bracketed, meaning no agreement exists on any of its text.

A group of so-called “like-minded” nations led by Saudi Arabia, Russia, Malaysia, Iran, Morocco, India, Cuba and Kazakhstan want the article and its reference to production limits deleted entirely. These nations argue the crisis can be addressed through improved waste management, recycling and product design.

Proponents of production limits say the treaty is ineffectual without caps, given that less than 10% of plastics are currently recycled.

“This process cannot result in a narrow waste management treaty,” representatives from the Cook Islands said, noting that small island states already sinking beneath the waves due to sea level rise are also drowning in plastic.

The United States, the world’s second-largest plastic producer behind China, aligns with the “like-minded” group. The US pivot under President Donald Trump struck a major blow to hopes of a strong treaty, reversing the Biden administration’s late support for production limits.

US delegates cite plastics’ importance to the American economy and view hard production limits as infringements on sovereignty and an overstep of the treaty’s authority. 

The US delegation has proposed striking language describing the treaty’s scope as covering the “full life cycle of plastics,” which would include every step from fossil fuel extraction through production to disposal. 

This change in the treaty’s scope would focus the agreement entirely on waste management, dashing ambitions for the treaty to address production and live up to its billing by UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen as the most consequential environmental agreement since the 2015 Paris Accord.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that a waste-management-only approach would still result in a 47% increase in mismanaged plastic waste by 2040 as the production boom outpaces infrastructure. Plastic leaked into the environment would increase 50% by 2040 from 2020 levels.

Decades of research and billions of dollars have been poured into plastic recycling, yet it remains ineffective. The OECD projects plastic production will triple by 2060 under current trends, with less than 10% recycled. Just 6% of plastics produced in 2040 will be made from recycled materials.

“It is now clear that the world cannot recycle its way out of the plastic pollution crisis,” The Lancet Plastics Countdown stated in a report released last week on the opening day of the talks.

The other club 

On the other side of the table, more than 100 nations support legally binding plastic production limits and phase-out dates.

This coalition includes the 27 member states of the European Union and other European allies, the United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland, Canada, 39 small island developing states, and large numbers of African and Latin American nations.

Many nations beyond the core group of 100 seeking production cuts have voiced support for limiting chemicals of concern in plastic production, a measure also opposed by the United States and the ‘like-minded’ group.

Current proposals list “203X” as placeholder dates for banning single-use plastics, which account for half of global production. The next article states that countries may register for exceptions from these undetermined deadlines.

“We will not stand by while our future is bartered away in a stalemate,” Ilana Seid, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said.

Health provision on the chopping block

Many high-ambition nations are also pushing for Article 3, which outlines how plastic chemicals threaten health and the environment. But this article, too, remains largely in brackets.

The proposed health component was put forward by Mexico and Switzerland and supported by over 80 countries. It would include legally binding obligations to remove hazardous chemicals from plastics, updated as toxicity science evolves, plus traceability and transparency mechanisms for chemicals of concern.

More than 16,000 chemicals are used in plastics, over 4,200 of which are considered “highly hazardous” to human health. An additional 5,000 compounds are classified as “unknowns,” with no public data on their safety or long-term impacts.

Health is mentioned 36 times in the draft text and features in the agreement’s first sentence, which cites protecting “human health” as a key objective.

Some nations state health is beyond the treaty’s scope and should be handled by the World Health Organization. At the last World Health Assembly, however, some of the same member states, such as Russia, argued that the agency shouldn’t be involved in the plastics issue, because it was being handled by UNEP.

Other countries argue that plastic’s threat to health should be referenced only as a “potential impact,” despite extensive scientific evidence to the contrary.

“Many of the chemicals added to plastic during manufacture are hazardous, including endocrine disruptors that lead to hormone imbalance, reproductive disorders, infertility, kidney disease and cancer,” WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this week.

“Emerging evidence also connects plastic exposures to obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular risks,” Tedros added. “We call on all countries to negotiate, adopt and implement a strong treaty that protects health from the harms of plastic pollution.”

‘Plastics Crisis’ Costs Trillions, Kills Hundreds of Thousands Each Year, Lancet Finds

Consensus isn’t working

The requirement for unanimous agreement embedded in the treaty negotiation framework has allowed low-ambition countries to block progress with little incentive to change course, generating widespread frustration with the INC’s rules of procedure from nations and civil society alike.

Ethiopia’s delegation said consensus had been used to “hold the entire process hostage” and called for informal discussions to address challenging articles.

“So far, the INC negotiation process is broken. We are currently in damage-control mode, particularly the failure for a vote against consensus, which has continued to place the plastic treaty process into uncertainty,” said Leslie Adogame, executive director of Nigerian environmental think tank SRADeV, part of the International Pollutants Elimination Network.

Some countries and environmental groups had hoped INC Chair Luis Valesco would allow a vote in Friday’s plenary to change the rules to a simple majority if consensus proved impossible. The chair yet to bring up such a vote.

“We risk having a meaningless treaty without any binding global rules like bans and phase-outs,” Eirik Lindebjerg of the World Wildlife Fund told AFP.

“Expecting any meaningful outcome to this process through consensus is a delusion,” Lindebjerg said. “With the time remaining, the ambitious governments must come together as a majority to finalize the treaty text and prepare to agree it through a vote.”

During a Saturday press conference, Valesco danced around questions on the most contentious issues in the text and how he plans to move forward. UNEP’s Andersen acknowledged progress had to speed up but insisted a deal remains within reach through compromise.

“I’m not saying which would be the compromises. But it is critical when you’re negotiating that countries … begin to talk about what it looks like in terms of compromise,” Andersen said.

Momentum to overrule the consensus structure is building as major plastic producers show no signs of changing positions. Russia, Kuwait and Kazakhstan spoke at Saturday’s plenary session, decrying any attempts to move away from consensus.

Ministers arrive as the clock ticks

High-level ministerial delegations arrive Tuesday with hopes to break the deadlock. With key sections of the treaty still unresolved, it’s unclear whether those delegations will have greater authority to expedite hard decisions.

“We need to see the speed accelerate irrespective of who’s arriving when,” Andersen said Saturday. “We’re all counting the days. I don’t think that there’s a set point at which the negotiations have to arrive at the time of the ministers’ arrivals.”

Should the talks fail yet again — negotiations were supposed to conclude in Busan but that meeting ended without agreement, forcing this overtime round — high-ambition nations may explore alternatives such as creating their own framework or treaty outside the UN process.

With greenhouse gas emissions from plastic production set to more than double by 2050, patience with countries seeking to lock in increased production is wearing thin. The emissions pose increasing threats to natural ecosystems, human health and the planet.

“After three years of trying to work by consensus, the negotiations are now at a breaking point,” environmental groups said in a joint statement. “This cannot continue. Member States must use every tool of multilateralism at their disposal and move forward with solutions that aren’t hostage to those defending the status quo.”

Image Credits: UNEP, UNEP, UNEP, UNEP.