As the two-year mandate of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) is coming to an end, differences of opinion among its members regarding a range of technicalities are raising doubts about the INC’s ability to reach a consensus on an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution by late 2024. The document’s goal is to decrease plastic production worldwide, including primary plastic polymers that have harmful environmental and health effects.
Set up in 2022 at the request of the United Nations Environment Assembly, INC held the fourth of its five planned meetings in Ottawa, Canada on 23-29 April. This session brought together the highest number of delegates to date, over 2500, who represented 170 members. The number of observer organizations attending the event was 480, an increase of almost 50%.
The participants focused on the 69-page draft document produced by the INC secretariat based on the outcomes of the previous three sessions which in particular discussed emissions and releases, production, waste management, problematic and avoidable plastics, financing, and a just transition, the UN Environment Programme stated in a press release.
Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, Executive Secretary of the INC Secretariat, praised the 18-month-long work of the INC, describing it as “the fulfillment of your commitment to saving future generations from the global scourge of plastic pollution”.
Nevertheless, while the participants at the meeting engaged in intense discussions during the seven days in Ottawa, many felt that the progress made by the conclusion of the session was insufficient. The US-based Recycling Today highlighted that the delegates failed to reach a decision on two matters of principle – “whether the treaty will have common global rules or voluntary ones and whether it will include measures to reduce production and consumption of plastics”.
The Belgian presidency and the European Union highlighted the existence of “differences over the scope and purpose of the future treaty” and noted that “a great deal of technical work remains to be done”.
The delegates left Canada with many still feeling that, although progress had been made, it would be insufficient to enable the text to be finalized during the fifth and final gathering of the Committee. Experts noted that the divergence of opinion also widened the gap in being able to produce a final treaty as the participants had diverse views on almost all the technical points of the text, including negotiations on problematic and avoidable plastics, product design, composition, and performance.
To deal with these issues, the Committee has decided to launch a legal drafting group to guarantee the legal clarity of the text of the final agreement. Additionally, it has set up two expert groups –one to analyze potential sources and means for the future implementation of the instrument and another to establish technical details of different approaches.
The Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, Inger Andersen, noted that time was working against humans and acknowledged that plastic continues to contaminate the planet but commented:
“we will continue to need plastic for specific uses, such as renewable energy technologies, but there is growing agreement that short-lived and single-use plastics can be phased out”.
While the participants were negotiating the points of the instrument during the meeting, approximately 160 financial companies called on INC-4 delegates to establish a treaty and end plastic pollution. Specifically, the signatory financial firms, including Canadian pension investor CDPQ and Britain’s Legal & General Investment Management, called for binding rules and steps to ensure that state and private finance align with the target of eradicating plastic contamination. They also urged companies to assess their plastic-related risks and set clear goals and regulations to meet the established targets.
See also: The hidden dangers of plastic: Health and Environmental implications | Experts’ Opinions
Global plastic production has doubled since the early 2000s and exceeded 400 million metric tons per year in 2022. Although plastic products have a lifespan of about 10 years, they take up to 500 years to decompose. A recently released database of plastic chemicals showed that plastics contain 16,000 chemicals, including 4,200 that pose health and environmental hazards.
