(New York) The head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on Sunday welcomed the beginning of “convergence” in the negotiations for the first global treaty to combat the scourge of plastic.
Delegations from 175 countries agreed in 2022 to finalize such a treaty by the end of 2024. The fifth and final round of negotiations is scheduled for November 25 to 1er December in Busan, South Korea. But some divisions remain, particularly between nations that want an ambitious limitation on plastic production and some producing countries, which prefer to improve recycling.
“There are some areas where I think we are starting to see convergence,” Inger Andersen told reporters on Sunday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
She hoped that member states could agree on “some degree of global obligations or guidelines for plastic products.”
She also spoke of more convergence on the need for a scientific body and certain elements of the text to look “at waste, waste management, recycling”.
“There is a clear understanding that we need a text that addresses the legacy, the existing pollution that will wash up on our shores even after we turn off the famous plastic tap,” she noted.
“We still see some differences […] around production ceilings,” she said, however.
“We want a reduction in the production of raw polymers used for [produit] single-use or short-life products,” she added, specifying that the ceilings would mainly target polluting products.
“I don’t see pieces of cars or airplane wings or things like that floating in the ocean,” the UN official noted, saying that a more intelligent discussion was needed than just “ceiling or no ceiling.”
Another delicate point in the discussions is a possible tax on plastic, a question “still under discussion” and which may require more time, she said.
Annual plastic production has more than doubled in twenty years to reach 460 million tonnes. It could triple by 2060 if nothing is done. However, only 9% of plastics are recycled.