Plurilateralism for Plastics?

The old world order is dead. Nostalgia won’t bring it back. Prepare for the new.

That was the stark message Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered to the world’s corporate elite in Davos, Switzerland. His remarks mostly focused on international trade, but he could have easily been talking about security, health, the environment, or any other subject. The US withdrawal from the IPCC, UNFCC, WHO, and a host of other UN bodies was the final nail in the coffin of the post-World War II international order that the US itself had largely created. Even if Trump is followed by a “normal” US president, the damage has been done; no country can rely, as they have in the past, on the US as an anchor of stability.

Carney was honest enough to acknowledge that the US-led multilateral system never truly worked as advertised. In particular, the so-called rules-based order never adequately constrained the actions of superpowers. Nowhere have those failures been more on display than in the field of climate change. Almost 35 years after the world’s countries agreed to prevent “dangerous interference with the climate system,” greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, global temperatures are rising faster than ever, and impacts are more severe than ever. Yet every year, tens of thousands of people make the pilgrimage to the annual climate negotiations (known simply as the COP) to try, yet again, to nudge the world’s governments to take stronger action. And every year, a handful of petrostates (including the US) have derailed action.

After 30 years of consecutive failure, why do people keep coming back to the COP? The simple answer is: there is no other game in town. For all its flaws, the COP is the one annual, can’t-miss event in which every national government on the planet shows up to talk about climate.

But talking isn’t enough. For action, Carney is telling us, we need to build alternatives. Of course, he’s far from the first to call for alternatives to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; but inertia, and an unwillingness to work around the US, have forestalled previous efforts. Now that the US has shown itself the exit from global diplomacy, there is no alternative but to build a new world order that does not depend on the US for its linchpin.

One vision for what this new order might look like is “plurilateralism” – essentially, coalitions of ambitious countries banding together to advance common goals. Crucially, they would convene outside the UN; this would allow ambitious countries to keep out the spoilers that have derailed the UNFCCC and the plastics treaty negotiations. Keeping out bad actors – countries that would rather wreck the process than see it succeed – will undoubtedly make the negotiation process faster, easier, and much more likely to reach consensus. But it will bring other challenges as well: how do we solve global problems when the most problematic countries are not bound by the law? Fortunately, this is a common issue in international law, and there are solutions.

We’ll get a first look at this approach this week – I’m currently on my way to Santa Marta, Colombia, where the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands will host the first conference to phase out fossil fuels. This process is being presented as a complement, not an alternative, to the UNFCCC. If this conference is seen as a success, plastics treaty delegates – many of whom will attend – will surely take notice.

So what would a plurilateral process for plastics look like? If it takes a cue from the conference to phase out fossil fuels, here are some things we can expect: first, it will be hosted by ambitious national governments, not a UN or civil society body. Taking the initiative will allow the hosts the opportunity to put their own stamp on the process. They can also discard the cumbersome UN rules of procedure that have resulted in perpetual deadlock. Second, it will be invitation-only. The hosts will invite national governments that have previously signaled their support for real progress, for example by signing on to ambitious Conference Room Papers. Critically, select invitations will allow the hosts to keep spoiler countries at bay. The same will likely apply to non-state actors: those with clear conflicts of interest, such as industry, will be excluded; and even supportive sectors may see their numbers limited.

The fossil fuel phaseout conference is being framed as an implementation conference, not a negotiation session. No new treaties or protocols will be proposed. This helps to avoid the appearance of undermining the UNFCCC; but the difference may be more semantic than substantive. After all, implementation is what ultimately matters. If the conference succeeds in matching mitigation commitments to finance, it could generate more results, much faster, than formal treaty negotiations.

Similarly, convenors of a plurilateral conference on plastics might try to avoid the impression of undermining the ongoing INC process and its host organization, UNEP. An “implementation conference” could nevertheless tackle the full range of issues, including chemicals phaseout, production cuts, just transition, and finance. Participating countries would make a set of mutual pledges, backed up by finance guarantees; that combination would create real impacts on the ground.

Or the hosts could decide to get ambitious. If the INC’s new chair is unable to inject dynamism into the process – meaning, unable to confine spoiler countries to their corner – there may be an appetite for replacing the INC altogether, as the Ottawa process did on land mines.

In either case, there will be no need to start negotiations from scratch. Almost unnoticed among the procedural snafus, the INC process has produced widespread support for a very ambitious treaty text, as represented by the key conference room papers on each topic. Each of these papers is signed by several dozen countries, representing broad agreement on the contours of a treaty. Whether framed as a treaty or as an interlocking set of pledges and financing agreements, the plurilateral plastics initiative could easily overshadow the INC process.

But they’ll have to move somewhat quickly. The progressive countries are not the only ones trying to step into the power vacuum left by the US. In March, Japan hosted its own version of an invite-only gathering of countries to tackle plastics. The US, Saudia Arabia and other problem states were invited, and reportedly little progress was made. But the message is clear: in a plurilateral world, anyone can take the initiative to create a coalition of the willing – and that can cut two ways.