The red lines for countries in the plastics treaty came out in Busan, South Korea.
The headlines from the just-ended talks focused on the failure to find an agreement, in what was supposed to be the fifth and final negotiating session.
But failure may not be the best way to see what happened at the weeklong session in Busan.
For starters, countries agreed to another yet-to-be-scheduled negotiation in 2025 that they're calling INC 5.2, for intergovernmental negotiating committee, the official United Nations group organizing the talks.
But more importantly, this round gave a much clearer picture of what a final agreement could look like.
New red lines were plainly visible for a bloc of about 100 countries, including the European Union, who want some language on plastics production and on lists of chemicals and plastic products of concern to be in whatever agreement emerges.
Participants in a Dec. 11 webinar from the Innovation Forum said the size of the coalition backing those statements was not expected before the Busan round began on Nov. 25.
In fact, the longest sustained applause at the final plenary Dec. 1 came when the 85 members of the "Stand up for Ambition" coalition made their statement, delivered by officials from Rwanda.
Similarly, 94 countries signed on to a statement delivered by Mexico, calling for the treaty to include a "clear, legally binding obligation to phase out the most harmful plastic products and chemicals of concern in plastics."
Still, there are major economies among the 175 countries in the talks that have not signed on to those ideas.
The first four rounds were dominated by a smaller group of countries opposed to those plans, mainly oil producing nations in the Middle East and Russia but also including India. They repeatedly declared their own red lines over not wanting production limits and phase-out lists.
The fault lines remain, but what was new in Busan was the bloc wanting production limits or phase-out lists was much more emphatic.
The next few months until INC 5.2 could see behind-the-scenes attempts by the various blocs to bring countries to their side.
But if they can't bridge gaps, then observers and some countries in Busan raised the possibility that the talks would split, with nations who want a more ambitious deal forming their own multilateral agreement.
There's some precedent in other global pacts. Participants in the Innovation Forum webinar pointed to the international land mine agreement, which broke a deadlock after a smaller group split off.
Some say that would weaken the plastics treaty if it can't bring in most major petrochemical producing nations.
We here at Plastics News ran through some of the implications of a split and looked at the politics of the treaty going forward in our post-Busan livestream.
You can also see our coverage from Busan on our treaty page on our website, including debates over including virgin resin fees in the treaty, an important topic for both the plastics industry and for developing nations calling for ways to finance any agreement.
I'm not sure anyone can predict what will happen, but coming out of Busan, we have a much clearer picture of the red lines and what success or failure could look like.
Steve Toloken is Plastics News' assistant managing editor.