The Paris stage of international negotiations to put an end to plastic pollution ends on Friday. Countries hostile to an ambitious treaty, including the oil-producing bloc, have stalled talks. A treaty must see the light of day by the end of 2024.
Some 175 countries are meeting in Paris, at UNESCO headquarters, until Friday June 2, for the second of five negotiating sessions intended to develop a legally binding treaty by the end of 2024. The stakes are high: the annual production of plastic has more than doubled in 20 years to reach 460 million tonnes. It could triple by 2060 if nothing is done.
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This second discussion session did not lead to a text or to the calibration of an ambition, but it made it possible to delimit the fault lines, and to begin the clarification of positions on what each is ready to accept.
Refractory countries against ambitious countries
What we saw in Paris was the constitution of a bloc of refractory countries. Schematically, we find the bloc of oil and therefore plastic producers, and among them Saudi Arabia, China, India, Russia, and even Brazil, which subsequently softened its position. They blocked discussions for two days. The plenary assembly got bogged down on one point of the rules of procedure. Two days marked with “a lot of nitpicking“, to use the words of the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu.
The other achievement of this week is positive, with the reinforcement of the ambitious camp. The coalition to which France belongs has grown to 58 states. Delegates also accelerated their discussions in an attempt to clarify their positions. This gathering in Paris seems to be the session that laid the foundations for a draft text, but this draft does not yet exist. The ambitious hope that it will be drawn up within the next six months before the third round of negotiations scheduled in Kenya. We can therefore say that we lost time in Paris, but that we nevertheless made progress by using the policy of small steps and bringing to light the fault lines.
Binding system or consensus rule
Adopting the ban timetable may be tenable before 2024, but there is a risk of blockage. The 175 countries have still not agreed on the decision rule. We find the two tendencies, the camp of the ambitious which defends a binding system with a two-thirds majority, and the camp of the refractory which braces itself on the rule of consensus. In Paris, the countries agreed that they disagreed.
There is therefore a new risk of deadlock in the long term, with a two-speed treaty scheme marked by willing countries on one side and refractory countries on the other. Today, the divergence concerns the means of putting an end to plastic pollution, in particular between those who want to reduce production, change the model, and those who mainly rely on recycling.