A push for resin production caps at UN meeting

New York — As the global plastics treaty talks prepare for a sprint to the finish in two months, countries favoring limits on resin production — including the United States — made a push on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session.

At a Sept. 25 event in New York organized by the U.N., diplomats from the U.S., France and other countries said the treaty should include yet-to-be-defined limits on resin production, as well as tackle problematic plastic products and chemicals of concern in polymers.

The event was one of several held throughout the week in New York on the margins of the General Assembly session, including a closed-door meeting where countries tried to work out differences.

The week's events suggested that countries remain split on more controversial elements such as production caps and chemicals of concern. Russia, for example, spoke at the Sept. 25 U.N. meeting and suggested the treaty should focus on waste management. It accused other countries of "trying to reorganize the whole world's economy," rather than keep the pact limited to environmental problems.

Amid the verbal sparring, there were signs of widespread agreement in some areas, including extended producer responsibility systems, financing for better waste management and product design to improve recyclability.

Previous negotiating sessions were nearly stalled by Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and other nations, partly over concerns about limits on resin production. These countries also generally advocate for the treaty to focus only on areas where all parties agree, as they believe the U.N. resolution initiating the talks requires.

The U.N. session was the first since the United States said in August that it was shifting its position to support limits on resin production, and that seemed to prompt countries to renew their arguments for caps and other more controversial elements.

A U.S. diplomat publicly called for global limits on resin production.

"We recognize that a global goal to reduce the global production and consumption of primary plastic polymers should serve as an effective goal, a North Star to encourage continued and meaningful ambitions," U.S. Undersecretary of State Jose Fernandez said at the Sept. 25 forum.

"We also recognize that global criteria and lists may be useful tools to address problematic and avoidable plastic products, as well as chemicals of concern in plastics, to get a range of options for countries to take with respect to these chemicals and products," Fernandez said.

"We are committed and ready to take action to achieve these goals," said Fernandez, in a message that was a shift from his speech to the plastics treaty session in Canada in April, where he had said that the U.S. supported a treaty that could be strengthened over time, and he noted political limitations in the U.S., as well as technological limitations with alternative materials.

U.S. plastics industry groups have blasted the change in position, saying it would cost jobs and make it harder to build political support for a treaty in the U.S. Senate.

A French diplomat, however, told the U.N. session that "there is no other way" to fully address plastic pollution from growing levels of production without some limits.

"Even if we go through the different provisions that are already in the treaty, such as eco-design, such as getting rid of some — not just ridiculous but also problematic — products, that will not be sufficient," said Sylvie Lemmet, France's ambassador for the environment. "At least that is what the science is telling us, that is what many studies are telling us, without a decrease in production.

"I'm not saying it's going to be simple," she said. "How do we identify a collaborative mechanism to get there? Probably it will take some time, but it is not something that should be left out of the treaty."

Lemmet said countries have significant work to do to finish an agreement at the final planned negotiating session, scheduled for late November in Busan, South Korea.

"We are far from reaching a consensus, let's be very clear," she said.

Adding to the push for production caps, a diplomat from the United Kingdom said that her country had recently signed the Bridge to Busan declaration, a statement from about 40 countries and national groups that says the treaty must address "unsustainable" levels of primary plastic production.

It says production freezes or cuts against baseline levels are needed to both curtail plastic pollution and limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius.

Diplomats said it's not clear whether the talks will be successful in Busan, the fifth and last planned meeting for the treaty's Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, or INC.

"People are understandably concerned that we will not be able to finalize the negotiations by the end of the year, that vested interests will keep us from meeting the world's expectations," said Tore Sandvik, Norway's minister of climate and environment, in a speech at a Sept. 23 plastics and health conference in New York.

The diplomatic maneuvering among nations prompted some environmental groups to argue that a stronger treaty with most or many countries would be better than a weaker treaty with all countries. The World Wildlife Fund suggested that the 67 countries in the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution (HAC), a bloc in the treaty that overlaps some with Bridge to Busan signatories, should reject a treaty that's too weak.

"Should [the South Korea talks] conclude with a weak voluntary treaty, HAC countries must instead pursue the global treaty they promised through other forums," said Eirik Lindebjerg, global plastics policy lead with WWF International. "A treaty with binding measures supported by the majority of countries will be more effective than a voluntary-based treaty supported by all countries."

The HAC group released a statement of INC-5 priorities on Sept. 25 that largely echoed its previous announcements, including encouraging nations to agree on goals to reduce plastic production and consumption. That prompted Greenpeace to call the coalition "almost ambitious" and urge them to back specific targets.

"The High Ambition Coalition should be true to its name and push for a global reduction target in Busan," said Graham Forbes, Greenpeace's head of delegation for the treaty talks. "We need a strong agreement that will match the scale of the crisis. The [treaty] must cut plastic production by at least 75 percent by 2040."

As well, more than 160 environmental groups released a letter urging negotiators not to give up on production limits in any compromise and deal-making.

Business groups were also organizing around the U.N. session.

The International Chamber of Commerce hosted a forum Sept. 25 in New York where it called for stronger cooperation between governments and industry to strike a deal in Busan, saying it could accelerate policy frameworks and speed up innovation to tackle plastics pollution. The event included executives from Amcor Rigid Packaging, Dow Inc. and ExxonMobil Chemical, as well as from consumer goods companies, retailers and carmakers.

Still, the shape of any final treaty remained unclear.

At the Sept. 25 forum, Russian negotiators cautioned that the treaty must be based on consensus among all countries, a point of disagreement in earlier rounds, where some favored majority voting to resolve differences.

That issue of treaty process remains unresolved ahead of Busan.

A Russian diplomat said the treaty should be realistic. "We believe our efforts should be realistically focused on truly environmental issues, instead of trying to reorganize the whole world's economy," the diplomat said.

"Cleaning up our oceans and other water and terrestrial ecosystems is an issue of utmost importance. To resolve this problem in an urgent manner, we should concentrate first on improving our national waste management systems, preventing leakage of plastic waste into the environment [and] enhancing plastic product design," the Russian representative told the forum.

One U.N. leader pointed to signs of agreement in the talks and said the treaty will help identify where plastics are essential and where they are nonessential.

The AFP news service reported Sept. 22 that U.N. environment chief Inger Andersen pointed to convergence around recycling, global guidelines for plastic products and for the treaty to include a scientific body, even if, she said, production caps and fees on plastics remain in dispute.

At the Sept. 25 forum, she called the potential treaty a "historic opportunity to course correct" from widespread plastic pollution in the environment and, increasingly, in human bodies.

"No rational person would choose to eat plastic," Andersen said. "But plastic pollution is so ubiquitous that worrying quantities of microplastics are nonetheless ending up in our bodies through food, water and even packaging."

She told the forum that the agreement needs to figure out what are essential uses of plastics.

"This instrument is not about banning essential plastics," Andersen said. "Plastic is incredibly useful. We will need it in clean transport, the energy transition, construction, health care and more. But we need to be far more careful about how, where and when we use this durable and flexible material."