Rejecting a Weak Plastics Treaty, Countries Open the Door to Stronger Climate Ambition

This post was originally written on August 15th, 2025

When the gavel came down on the sixth round of plastics treaty negotiations (confusingly named INC 5.2) in Geneva, the mood in the room was exhaustion and disappointment. Three years of immense effort and US$40 million had been invested in an effort to write an international treaty to end plastic pollution. Rather than produce a treaty, the talks ended in acrimony.

The most contentious issue was the effort to limit production of plastic polymers to sustainable levels. Plastic production emits twice as many greenhouse gases as the aviation sector, and is growing far more rapidly. Even worse, new plastic production is increasingly based on using coal as both energy source and feedstock, leading to even greater emissions. Reducing production is the only practical way to keep plastic production from breaking the carbon budget. It is also key to tackling the other types of plastic pollution, from marine plastics to microplastics.

But a handful of petrostates were determined to keep production reduction off the table. In maneuvers that directly mirrored their strategy at the UNFCCC, these naysayers exploited unclear rules of procedure to block the very measures repeatedly demanded by the majority. These procedural antics, condoned by a pliant chairman and the UNEP Secretary-General’s insistence on adopting a treaty by consensus, doomed the negotiations to failure.

Nevertheless, the three years of negotiation produced important — indeed astonishing — results. Plastic pollution, which until recently had been pigeonholed as a threat to marine wildlife, is now widely recognized as a major threat to the climate and human health. A flood of new science has documented plastic pollution in the remotest regions of the Earth and the most intimate parts of the human body. Industry is engaged, the public is outraged, and the media are paying attention. The call for reduced production has moved from the activist fringe to becoming a core demand of about 100 national governments. The political will for an effective treaty is evident.

The negotiations also produced excellent treaty texts. Position papers circulated by the negotiating states gathered clear majorities around strong texts on chemicals of concern, problematic products, Just Transition, and, most ambitious of all, reducing production. The chair, pandering to the petrostates, did not allow these texts to be debated, instead offering his own, outrageously weak text. This is what killed the process; but the texts, and the political agreement they represent, remain available for future action.

Two of the three legs required for an effective treaty are now in place: political will and a strong text. All that we lack is a good process. In particular, spoiler countries must not be allowed to hijack the proceedings against the will of the majority.

With the failure of the UNEP process, the ambitious countries will not be content to sit idly by and allow plastic production to continue to multiply. As several countries signalled in the closing plenary, the political ambition unleashed by the treaty will seek a new process to land ambitious plastics reduction policy.

There are multiple avenues to such policy, which would also control the sector’s carbon footprint. Here are a few:

• Follow the Ottawa process. When the landmines convention faced stalemate by a handful of obstructionist countries, Canada solved the problem by inviting countries that wanted an effective treaty to a negotiating session outside the UN. This was preceded by a series of informal consultations, based on a draft text prepared by Austria, to ensure that countries were generally aligned. The Ottawa process was rapid and resulted in an effective and widely-adopted treaty. It could be combined with a vote at UNGA. Multiple analysts consider the Ottawa process to be the most likely to deliver an effective agreement.

• Refer the treaty to the United Nations General Assembly. Unlike UNEA, UNGA has a history and culture of voting and could adopt the treaty if a finalized text is proposed. UNGA is not a good forum for negotiating remaining differences, in the text, however.

• Go back to the United Nations Environment Assembly. UNEA was the launchpad for these negotiations, and is a natural home for the treaty. But much trust has been lost through this process, and countries would need to be sure that they would not get stuck in the same procedural morass.

• Negotiate regional agreements. Some of the highest-ambition environmental treaties, like the Bamako Convention and the Escazú Agreement, are regional. Regional negotiations offer the possibility of rapid negotiations and early adoption, and can leverage market power to drive global supply-chain changes.

• Use market power. Similarly, legislation in major economies, such as the European Union, can be effective in setting high standards and pushing global firms to achieve them worldwide.

The plastics treaty process has galvanized political will and public attention and produced a number of workable texts for a plastics treaty. But it has been unable to deliver the treaty itself. The failure of the UNEP process will open the possibility to exploit more conducive paths to effective policy.

Photo Credit: Freepik