- The United States has revised its position regarding ongoing U.N. plastics treaty negotiations. The U.S. originally wanted a treaty based on voluntary nation-by-nation compliance, with the emphasis on improved plastics recycling and reuse. The new U.S. position recognizes the need to regulate plastics over their entire life cycle, including production.
- Analysts say the shift in U.S. position could help soften the positions of China, Russia, India and Saudi Arabia, nations that have vigorously opposed efforts to regulate production. All of these nations are major petrochemical and/or oil producers.
- The U.N. Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution is set to meet from Nov. 25-Dec. 1 in Busan, South Korea, where it plans to finalize treaty language. However, failing this, the treaty talks might continue next year.
- The U.S. election throws doubt on what the nation’s final position might be after the treaty language is finalized. It seems likely that a Kamala Harris administration would press for treaty ratification, while a Donald Trump administration could try to derail a final agreement (as was the case with the Paris climate agreement), especially if it regulates plastics production.
The chances for a stronger international agreement on limits to plastic production may have increased dramatically as the world nears a U.N. deadline for achieving a plastics treaty. The game changer: The United States, one of the world’s largest producers of plastics, has shifted its position to recognize the need to control the entire life cycle of plastics, whereas previously it had advocated for a nonbinding treaty emphasizing mainly recycling and reuse.
The U.N. Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution is scheduled to conduct its fifth and possibly final session (dubbed INC-5) this month, when it faces a self-imposed deadline to hammer out an internationally binding agreement, with the treaty language then going to the world’s nations for ratification. It’s possible, however, that if agreement isn’t reached, the process could run into next year.
Since the world began treaty negotiations in 2022, the U.N. meetings have been buffeted by widely diverging viewpoints. Large plastic-producing nations, such as the U.S., China, Russia, India and Saudi Arabia, have opposed efforts to limit or control production, whereas a self-named High Ambition Coalition (HAC) of 67 nations has fought to highly regulate it. Among coalition members are coastal and island nations on the receiving end of ocean-carried plastic waste. The U.S. has so far taken no known steps to join the HAC.
Between the INC’s fourth session, which took place in Ottawa in April, and the fifth session slated for Nov. 25-Dec. 1 in Busan, South Korea, the United States modified its position, acknowledging in August the need to limit production or use of certain polymers. The U.S. also dropped its opposition to setting worldwide targets for pollution reduction. Previously, the U.S. wanted to let each nation set its own limits. As of early November, it still hadn’t announced the details of what its new position would entail, however.
Reaction to the U.S. move was swift and vigorous. The American Chemistry Council, which represents petroleum producers, condemned the policy shift, saying “with today’s shift in position to support plastic production caps and regulate chemicals via the UN Plastics Agreement, the White House has signaled it is willing to betray U.S. manufacturing and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it supports.”
Advocates for a strong treaty, meanwhile, remain ambivalent and unsure how the shift will affect the outcome of the upcoming negotiations in Busan. “We need to know more,” said WWF vice president Erin Simon, though she suggested the move may isolate the nations opposing a strong internationally binding agreement. That could encourage the resisters to moderate their positions, suggested Graham Forbes, global plastics project leader at Greenpeace USA.
“Imposing limits on industry is something most governments are reluctant to do,” noted Karen Landmark, managing director of GRID-Arendal, an environmental communications center based in Norway. “A strong political voice will allow us to be more ambitious in negotiations and hopefully end up with a much stronger and binding commitment,” she said.
UNEP spokesperson Keishamaza Rukikaire told Mongabay in an email that the agency would not comment on individual member states’ positions.
“It’s a very important signal to see the U.S. support limits on production or sustainable production goals,” said Dennis Clare, Legal Advisor to the Federated States of Micronesia, an HAC member state. He also noted that now the entire G7 group of leading industrial economies has adopted that position.
“They are clearly intending to signal to the rest of the world that they are moving in the right direction,” Clare observed. “The extent they encourage other nations to do the same is what we are waiting to see. We need to see what their next step will be.”
Some remain skeptical, including an EU negotiator who wasn’t authorized to be quoted by name. The U.S position, he said, remains “very vague … It is not clear what it means in a negotiating context.” He added that advocates of a tough binding treaty are currently more concerned about Brazil, India and China possibly mucking up the works. “We have not spent much time worrying about what the U.S. [will do], to be honest.”
Mongabay inquiries to the campaigns of U.S. presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris went unanswered. But Forbes with Greenpeace USA said that Harris, the current vice president, has been supportive. “She’ll have to step up and show leadership on the process.” Though INC-5 will take place before a change in administration, an empowered Trump administration could “blow up the whole process,” one unnamed negotiator fears. Oil interests have given more than $75 million to Trump PACs, according to The New York Times.
In the run-up to INC-5, the U.S. has not confirmed whether it will sign the Bridge to Busan, a declaration calling for a treaty that limits primary plastic polymer production to “sustainable levels,” though the declaration doesn’t specify those levels. As of the end of October, 40 nations (including the European Union) have signed the declaration, with the United Kingdom being the most recent to join. In addition, 87 diverse NGOs have signed the Bridge to Busan, ranging from the Global Youth & Sustainability Organization to the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme and Armenian Women for Health & Healthy Environment.
“I don’t know if [the U.S.] will sign it, but we’ll certainly encourage that,” Clare said.
As already noted, it remains unclear whether the US will join the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution, which is pushing for “an ambitious and effective treaty” at INC-5 to end plastic pollution by 2040 “based on a comprehensive approach that addresses the full life cycle of plastics, including design, production, consumption, and end of life.”
However, at a September U.N. meeting in New York City to Galvanize Momentum for the Global Plastic Pollution Instrument, Jose Fernandez, the U.S. State Department’s undersecretary for economic growth, energy and the environment, said, “We believe that the U.S. … needs to be part of the instrument.”
Manuel Vidal, global leader of climate and energy at WWF, who chaired that U.N. meeting, said, “We are fully sure the U.S. will be part of this treaty and an active actor to implement it.”
Officially, the U.S. remains close-lipped. Larke Williams, the chief negotiator on the treaty at the U.S. State Department, indicated a willingness to talk to Mongabay but then said she needed permission from the media relations team at the department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. However, the media relations team then referred Mongabay to Jonathan Black, senior director for chemical safety and plastic pollution prevention at the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) at the White House.
A query to Black was returned with a note from Justin Weiss, the CEQ’s director of communications, saying, “We do not have anything more to share at the moment but will be in touch when we have more to share a little closer to INC-5.”
Banner image: A woman pulls a large bag filled with plastic waste in a landfill in Bangladesh. Image by Mumtahina Tanni via Pexels (Public domain).
Correction (11/10/2024): Dennis Clare is a Legal Advisor to the Federated States of Micronesia, not the Chief Negotiator.
At its fourth summit, 170 nations strive toward a global plastics treaty by 2025
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