No agreement reached at UN talks on plastic pollution
The 185 countries that gathered in the Swiss city of Geneva failed to reach an agreement on the fight against plastic pollution, reported several delegations at the UN talks. It is currently unclear how the process will continue.
In recent days, it had already become apparent that the positions were still far apart. A draft treaty, in which virtually all binding commitments had been removed, was rejected by dozens of countries. An amended proposal again failed to receive unanimous support on Friday morning. After ten days of intensive negotiations, there were still more than a hundred points to be clarified.
“We need to be honest: this is a failure,” stated Jean-Luc Crucke, federal minister of climate and ecological transition, who represented Belgium at the UN summit in Geneva. “We had to find a consensus and we did not succeed.”
“In this case, no agreement is better than a deal that entrenches the status quo at the UN level without a real solution to the plastic crisis,” added Florian Tize of the environmental organisation WWF.
The international conference in Geneva was supposed to result in a legally binding treaty covering the entire life cycle of plastic: from production and design to waste processing. The negotiations began three years ago.
The participating countries agree on the need to tackle plastic waste, but there is considerable disagreement about the solution to the problem. The European Union and more than a hundred countries from Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific want to limit plastic production to a sustainable level, remove disposable packaging from circulation and focus on reusable products, recycling and the circular economy.
On the other side are countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia, which produce oil, the raw material for plastic. They try to shift the focus to effective waste management.
Plastic pollutes the oceans, the environment and the air. It kills fish and other living creatures and also endangers human health. The smallest plastic particles are increasingly being found in organs and even in the brain.
Artwork by Canadian artist Benjamin Von Wong created for the UN summit on plastic pollution in Geneva © PHOTO Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP
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