The Final Plastic Pollution Treaty Negotiations Are Underway, What Can We Expect?

The United Nations Environment Assembly decided to create an international, legally binding treaty to address plastic pollution in 2022. Two years later, the committee building out an agreement to address plastic waste from design through disposal is meeting for the final time. With negotiations set to wrap up on December 1, experts have mixed expectations for the results. 

The negotiators have been working hard since the next-to-last round of talks in April to conclude the negotiations on schedule, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the International Negotiating Committee’s (INC) chair, said in an October webinar hosted by the Geneva Environment Network.

Vayas called an advance meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, on October 1, 2024, with the heads of the treaty delegations, presenting them with a paper containing the specific elements he hopes will help shape the formal negotiations.

“It was a very positive exchange of views in an informal setting,” Vayas said. “It was not a negotiation. But it will give us a lot of light about how to negotiate.”

David Azoulay, the director of the Environmental Health Program for the Center for International Environmental Law, has a somewhat different view. Following the April negotiations, it was clear that a reduction in plastic production would not even be on the table during the final talks, he said. Without reducing plastic production, the treaty will fail to make a dent in plastic pollution, the primary goal of environmentalists.

But recent news provided hope for environmental groups that plastic production limits will be reintroduced. The Biden administration modified the United States’ position to support production limits and proposed a cap on virgin plastic polymers, Reuters reports.

And an effort by Champions of Change — a joint initiative of Greenpeace, the Plastic Pollution Coalition and Break Free from Plastic — brought together 350 businesses to sign an open letter urging governments to include a reduction of plastic production and a phase out of single-use plastic in the final treaty.

The European Union and other 40 nations also signaled they favor reaching sustainable levels of production of primary plastics in late October. But Patrick Krieger, a treaty delegate for the Plastics Industry Association, a group representing companies in the plastics supply chain, told Plastics News sufficient support is not likely.

"There are countries like China, like many of the [Persian] Gulf States, where production caps are a non-starter, and they will not sign anything," he said.

On October 30, 2024, INC Chair Vayas published a simplified text that captures the intent of the treaty elements in a more concise way. Vayas hopes the document will help guide negotiators to a successful conclusion. The text addresses the reduction of plastic production by recognizing “the need to achieve sustainable levels of production and consumption of plastics.” It provides some first steps for achieving that goal, although not language to reduce production.

The Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastic Treaty, a network of independent scientific and technical experts, drew some hard lines that it believes must be addressed to achieve its goals. That includes legally mandated targets for the reduction of plastic production, global and national phaseouts of nonessential plastic products and the polymers that make those products, and a science body ensuring that the targets remain scientifically informed, said Bethanie Carney Almroth, the group’s steering Committee member and a professor at Gutenberg University.

At the conclusion of the last formal negotiation session in April, negotiators agreed to hold meetings of two groups of experts to work on the draft treaty language before the final session this week. The topics they’re addressing give a preview of the treaty’s ultimate focus: assessing the chemicals of concern in plastic products and product design, and how to finance the implementation of the treaty.

The first group is looking at possible control measures and exemptions for problematic products. Those products would be listed in a regularly reviewed annex to the treaty, according to Albert Magalang, who heads the Climate Change Office for the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources. 

Another set of experts in that group is addressing product design. “Product design contributes to plastic pollution,” Magalang said. “The treaty will improve safe circularity, addressing the chemicals of concern.” 

His sense is that discussions in these expert group talks are going well. “There was general agreement overall,” Magalang said. “The differences were over whether the treaty’s elements should be mandatory or voluntary or a combination of both.”

So where does business stand on the treaty? “An ambitious treaty is good for business, for society and the environment,” said Allison Lin, global vice president of packaging sustainability and chief circularity officer for multinational manufacturing company Mars, Inc. 

Lin is a member of the Business Coalition for a Global Plastic Treaty, a group of businesses and financial institutions in support of ending plastic pollution. “There is a high level of convergence amongst the business coalition on what it is seeking for an ambitious and global treaty,” she said.

The treaty has to address the full lifestyle of plastic and must be mandatory if we want to achieve any of these things at scale, Lin said. “A voluntary, nonspecific approach adds cost and uncertainty for business. We can start with strong provisions and improve as we go along.”

The Business Coalition also wants to see a reduction of chemicals of concern, elimination of unnecessary and problematic plastics, and improvements in product design, Lin said.

Tallash Kantai, digital editor for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, an independent reporting service on United Nations environment and development negotiations, follows the plastic treaty in her reporting. She said she sees challenges with perspectives and financing between the Global North and developing nations. 

“This is a stand-alone-treaty, and it has been a win to get it this far,” she said. “But to be effective, it can’t just be stand-alone, it has to engage with a number of agency sectors.”

Almroth, of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastic Treaty, seems to agree. “Plastic pollution is at the center of the triple planetary crisis: climate, biodiversity and pollution. How is plastic driving these crises, and how they are connected?”