Plastics treaty talks end with no agreement

The sixth round of Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) talks to develop a legally binding international treaty addressing plastic pollution concluded Aug. 15 in a similar fashion to previous installments—with no consensus among participants and familiar fault lines.

Despite the breakdown in negotiations following 10 days of talks in Geneva, participants agreed to continue the process at a date and location yet to be determined.

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According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), more than 2,600 participants gathered at Geneva’s Palais des Nations, including more than 1,400 member delegates from 183 countries and about 1,000 observers representing more than 400 organizations. Around 70 ministers and vice ministers, as well as 30 other “high-level representatives,” held informal roundtables on the margins of the session.

“This has been a hard-fought 10 days against the backdrop of geopolitical complexities, economic challenges and multilateral strains,” UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen says. “However, one thing remains clear: despite these complexities, all countries clearly want to remain at the table.

“While we did not land the treaty text we hoped for, we at UNEP will continue the work against plastic pollution—pollution that is in our groundwater, in our soil, in our rivers, in our oceans and, yes, in our bodies.”

The process

The goal of INC-5.2 was to agree on the treaty’s text and highlight unresolved issues. According to UNEP, the session followed a structured approach, starting with an opening plenary followed by a transition into four contact groups tackling key areas such as plastic design, chemicals of concern, production caps, finance and compliance. Next came a stocktake plenary, informal consultations and a closing plenary Aug. 15.

A “Chair’s Text” from INC-5.1, held late last year in Busan, South Korea, served as the starting point for negotiations at INC-5.2, with INC Chair Ambassador Luis Vayas Valdivieso of Ecuador releasing a draft text proposal and a revised edition over the course of the session.

UNEP notes that despite “intensive engagement,” committee members were unable to reach consensus on either text.

“Failing to reach the goal we set for ourselves may bring sadness, even frustration,” Valdivieso says. “Yet it should not lead to discouragement. On the contrary, it should spur us to regain our energy, renew our commitments and unite our aspirations. It has not happened yet in Geneva, but I have no doubt that the day will come when the international community will unite its will and join hands to protect our environment and safeguard the health of our people.”

UNEP says the session also involved the active participation of civil society, including Indigenous Peoples, waste pickers, artists, young people and scientists—who took part in protests, art installations, press briefings and events at and around the INC-5.2 venue.

“As this session concludes, we leave with an understanding of the challenges ahead and a renewed and shared commitment to address them,” says Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, executive secretary of the INC Secretariat. “Progress must now be our obligation.”

The stalemate

As with previous INC sessions, negotiators were unable to find common ground when it came to plastic production caps, the creation of a list of harmful chemicals and products of concern to phase out and a financial instrument to implement the program and aid developing countries. Similarly, representatives could not reach consensus on whether participation in the program would be voluntary or mandatory.

Fault lines largely stayed the same throughout different sessions. A majority of more than 100 “ambitious” nations such as Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, European Union member states and Australia, for example, have pushed for a legally binding treaty that includes production caps, phaseouts, a financial instrument and the ability to strengthen the text over time, while a smaller group of oil and gas producing nations such as the United States, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, have advocated for a more voluntary program focused more on international guidelines for product design and waste management, including recycling and reuse.

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Washington-based nongovernmental organization (NGO) Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) released an analysis at the session’s midway point claiming at least 234 fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists registered to participate, with those lobbyists outnumbering the combined diplomatic delegations of all 27 European Union nations, for example.

Then came an updated Chair’s Text Aug. 13, which a number of observers viewed as watered down, leaving out production caps entirely and suggesting a more voluntary approach for countries in regard to the other key provisions.

In a statement following its review of the new text, the Washington-based World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said it failed to live up to expectations that it would lead negotiations to a strong and ambitious treaty.

“Let’s be clear, this is not a global treaty,” Zaynab Sadan, global plastics policy lead and head of WWF’s INC-5.2 delegation said. “This is a collection of national and voluntary measures that will do nothing to address the worsening plastics crisis. After more than two-and-a-half years of negotiations, this is the furthest we’ve been from finalizing an effective treaty.”

CIEL’s delegation head, David Azoulay, said the text “makes a mockery of a three-year-long consultative process that showed broad support for an ambitious plastics treaty that addresses the full life cycle of plastics, including production. … This is a treaty that all but ensures that nothing will change. It gives in to petrostate and industry demands with weak, voluntary measures that guarantee we continue to produce plastic at increasing levels indefinitely, fail to safeguard human health, endanger the environment and damn future generations.”

The final attempt

In the early morning hours of Aug. 15, a revised Chair’s Text was released that included more language covering waste management and chemicals of concern, but still without mandatory production caps, financial or design guidelines.

According to WWF, the INC chair dismissed an Aug. 14 plenary just before midnight and released the revised text at 2 a.m. The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) adds that the final plenary started with a 40-minute notice at 5:30 a.m., with talks eventually breaking down as the session closed.

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Ana Rocha, global plastics policy director at Berkeley, California-based GAIA, says, “No treaty is better than a bad treaty. We stand with the ambitious majority who refused to back down and accept a treaty that disrespects the countries that are truly committed to this process and betrays our communities and our planet.

“Once again, negotiations collapsed, derailed by a chaotic and biased process that left even the most engaged countries struggling to be heard. A broken, nontransparent process will never deliver a just outcome. It’s time to fix it, so people and the planet can finally have a fighting chance.”

James Kennedy, technology analyst for U.K.-based research firm IDTechEx, called the collapse of treaty talks a “serious setback” for global environmental governance and for the plastics industry itself in a post-session statement.

“These negotiations represented a chance to establish binding global rules on design standards, recycled content and waste management targets that could have created the scale and certainty needed to accelerate investment in circular solutions,” he says. “Without that alignment, the shift away from virgin plastics will remain uneven, with some countries and regions introducing stringent regulations while others maintain business as usual. This fragmentation risks distorting trade flows, creating compliance complexity and discouraging cross-border investment in recycling and alternative materials infrastructure.”

Kennedy says downstream effects will be felt across the plastics value chain. He claims brand owners will face a patchwork of requirements on packaging design, labeling and recyclability, “complicating supply chains and increasing costs,” while polymer producers and converters will have less visibility on future demand for recycled and biobased feedstocks, slowing capital deployment into those sectors.

“The lack of a common framework also makes it harder to address transboundary plastic waste and the leakage of materials into the environment, meaning progress will continue to depend on a combination of national policy, corporate leadership and consumer pressure,” he says.

The Washington-based Ocean Conservancy said the failure to reach an agreement was disappointing but was encouraged to see the latest text added language addressing lost or discarded fishing gear in bodies of water, also known as “ghost gear.”

“However, the science is clear that if we want to truly end the plastics pollution crisis, we need strong measures to reduce plastics, which this new draft lacks entirely,” says Nicholas Mallos, vice president of Ocean Conservancy’s ocean plastics program. “It also leaves out obligations that require countries to execute the treaty and adequate financing to carry it out, making effective implementation difficult if not impossible. Overall, this updated treaty draft appears to focus on managing plastic waste, not ending plastic pollution—which is its original mandate. So, if the text were left as is, it would be a failed treaty.”

The lookback

Both environmental organizations and plastics industry representatives expressed a mix of disappointment in the breakdown of negotiations and hope that a treaty could one day be passed.

“The plastics industry came to Geneva ready to work toward a practical, science-based agreement focused on the original purpose of these talks: keeping plastic out of the environment,” Washington-based Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS) President and CEO Matt Seaholm says in a statement. “Unfortunately, significant gaps remain and there was an unwillingness among some participants to focus on addressing plastic waste, instead of pushing approaches that made it impossible to reach consensus. This was a missed opportunity.

“The plastics industry has been engaged from the start of these negotiations, and our companies have been—and continue to be—investing in sustainability, innovative technologies and circular design to keep plastic in use and out of the environment. Our oceans have no borders, which is why this must be a truly global effort. We know solutions exist, and we are working every day to eliminate plastic waste. Our industry is ready to lead and remains committed to being part of a global, workable solution.”

In particular, Chris Jahn, president and CEO of the Washington-based American Chemistry Council (ACC) applauded U.S. negotiators and their “unrelenting efforts” to bring governments together around a global agreement that would help “unleash” American innovation to solve the global plastic pollution challenge.

“America’s plastic makers remain committed to advancing a circular economy for plastics—designing products for reuse and recycling, collecting and sorting them at the end of life and remaking them into new products,” Jahn says. “A global agreement to end plastic pollution will help drive investment in innovation and infrastructure in the U.S. and worldwide, building on more than 160 projects that are already improving collection, sortation and recycling systems globally.

“We look forward to continuing to work with the Trump administration to advance these important policies. U.S. leadership remains a constructive force in advancing a meaningful agreement that addresses plastic pollution while supporting innovation, jobs and economic growth. ACC appreciates these efforts and the administration’s engagement throughout this process.”

Diane Crowe, group sustainability director at Reconomy UK Ltd., a U.K.-based specialty recycling and waste management services provider, says in a statement that INC-5.2 was a missed opportunity to tackle “one of the greatest structural challenges of our time,” adding that the world is extracting and consuming virgin resources faster than the world can regenerate them, with too few plastics being circulated back into the economy.

“This dependence on virgin materials is placing unsustainable pressure on the earth’s ecosystems and is contributing significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions,” Crowe says. “A strong agreement could have accelerated the global shift to a circular economy with nations committing to make better use of existing materials which would lower carbon emissions and environmental harm and reduce costs for businesses.”

Graham Forbes, global plastics campaign lead and delegation head for Greenpeace USA, says the inability to reach an agreement “must be a wakeup call for the world,” claiming the vast majority of governments want a strong agreement, yet “a handful of bad actors” were allowed to use process to “drive such ambition into the ground.”

“The plastics crisis is accelerating, and the petrochemical industry is determined to bury us for short-term profits,” Forbes says. “Now is not the time to blink. Now is the time for courage, resolve and perseverance. The call from all of civil society is clear: we need a strong, legally binding treaty that cuts plastic production, protects human health, provides robust and equitable financing and ends the plastic pollution from extraction to disposal. And world leaders must listen. The future of our health and planet depends on it.”

In the view of David Derrick, an attorney at the Oakland, California-based Center for Biological Diversity who attended INC-5.2, leaving Geneva without an agreement is better than “locking in a sham treaty” that allows for increasing plastic production.

“Walking away from a bad deal was the right move this time, but the clock is ticking,” Derrick says. “Every year without limits on plastic production means more pollution in our oceans and more harm to our health. We need bold governments to lead the way to a treaty that actually solves this crisis and protects future generations.”