Negotiators from around the world are meeting in South Korea in a final push to hammer out a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution.
It's the fifth time the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution has convened to craft a legally binding plastic pollution accord.
In addition to the national delegations in Busan, representatives from the plastics industry, scientists and environmentalists have come to shape how the world tackles the surging problem.
The planet is “choking on plastic”, according to the United Nations. It's polluting lakes, rivers, oceans and people's bodies.
“Don’t kick the can, or the plastic bottle, down the road," UN Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen said in a message to negotiators on Monday.
This “is an issue about the intergenerational justice of those generations that will come after us and be living with all this garbage. We can solve this and we must get it done in Busan,” she said in an interview.
The previous four global meetings have revealed sharp differences in goals and interests. This week's talks go until Saturday.
Led by Norway and Rwanda, 66 countries plus the European Union say they want to address the total amount of plastic on earth by controlling design, production, consumption and where plastic ends up.
The delegation from the hard-hit island nation of Micronesia helped lead an effort to call more attention to "unsustainable” plastic production.
Island nations are grappling with vast amounts of other countries’ plastic waste washing up on their shores.
“We think it’s the heart of the treaty, to go upstream and to get to the problem at its source,” said Dennis Clare, legal advisor and plastics negotiator for Micronesia.
“There’s a tagline, ‘You can’t recycle your way out of this problem.’”
Some plastic-producing and oil and gas countries, including Saudi Arabia vigorously oppose any limits on plastic manufacturing.
Most plastic is made from fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest exporter of primary polypropylene, a common type of plastic, accounting for an estimated 17 per cent of exports last year, according to the Plastics Industry Association.
China, the United States and Germany led the global plastics trade by exports and imports in 2023.
The plastics industry has been advocating for a treaty focused on redesigning plastic products, recycling and reuse, sometimes referred to as “circularity”.
Chris Jahn, International Council of Chemical Associations secretariat, said negotiators should focus on ending plastic waste in the environment, not plastic production, to get a deal. Many countries won’t join a treaty if it includes production caps, he said.
The US delegation at first said countries should develop their own plans to act, a position viewed as favouring industry. It changed its position this northern summer, saying the US is open to considering global targets for reductions in plastic production.
Research published in Science this month found it is still possible to nearly end plastic pollution.
Margaret Spring, chief conservation and science officer for Monterey Bay Aquarium, said plastic pollution used to be considered largely a waste problem. Now it is widely viewed as an existential crisis that must be addressed.
“I’ve never seen people’s understanding of this issue move as fast, given how complex the topic is,” she said.
“It gives me hope that we can actually start moving the dial.”
