Countries urged to ‘hold the line’ in Geneva plastics treaty negotiations | Plastics

The talks between the nations to hammer a plastic treaty to end plastic pollution continued in camera in Geneva on Thursday, the last day of the negotiations, while the groups of civil society urged the countries to “keep the line” to obtain a strong agreement.

With the time that exhausted to conclude an agreement between 184 countries, environmental groups have expressed their concern that front -line communities, indigenous peoples and others undergoing the worst impacts of the increasing plastic crisis of the world were “exhausted” in order to guarantee a treaty, without significant or legal measures which would approach the scale of the problem, “at all costs”.

This week’s negotiations towards a legally binding agreement to combat plastic pollution are the last people of five series of conferences in the past two and a half years, who have so far failed to produce an agreement.

The talks in the UN offices stalled Wednesday after a consensus treaty, presented by the president of the event, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, was rejected by 80 countries. The ambitious countries – which want borders on production – have described it as “unacceptable”, a “lowest common denominator” and a stewed waste management instrument, because it has not included production ceilings or addressed chemicals used in plastic products.

The countries of the group “Sharing the same ideas”, mainly oil producing countries and including Saudi Arabia, which want the treaty to focus on recycling and voluntary measures, said that it had crossed too much of their red lines and did not do enough to reduce the scope of the treaty.

Graham Forbes, head of the Greenpeace delegation, said: “The whole day was behind closed doors. All civil society is on board, while waiting to see what the next movement is going to be the chair and the secretariat. We are nervous at all costs, and we are concerned that we will be sold in an effort to obtain treatment at all costs.

“Civil society, front line communities, indigenous peoples, everyone is united to see something significant here. And we pray that these governments do the right thing and put our collective health before the short -term benefits of the petrochemical sector. ”

Rush for a weak treaty in Geneva, Forbes said: “would be a disaster”.

Some NGOs have said that they had “lost confidence” in a process with the need for consensus between the majority of countries wishing production ceilings compared to a small but powerful minority of oil and plastic countries which continue to reject the production limits.

Christina Dixon, campaign manager at the environmental investigation agency, said that the need for a consensus was to be “armed”.

“Many civil society have lost confidence in the process, because we have always seen a majority of countries aligning themselves with a vision of the type of treaty we would be satisfied. However, because of the way it is armed, we are constantly going to a small but a vocal minority that holds it hostage,” she said.

This system allowed the majority of countries to be “drowned,” said Dixon. She urged: “What we need to see this evening is that the views of this majority reflect fairly.”

Earlier Thursday, Camila Zepeda, Director General of World Affairs of the Mexico Foreign Ministry and negotiator during the talks, said: “If [the next treaty draft] is exactly the status quo, so we will have to assess whether it is better to continue working and try to find a better environment for this subject, but it is too early to say …

“We understand that it will be a very simple treaty at this stage. But if the key components are there and we can build it in time, then we will sign. To date, we have abandoned the prohibitions, we have abandoned the production limits. We have abandoned so much.

“As an ambitious country, we want a result, and we see that if we do not get a result, we risk a lot. But at the same time, we will not take anything.”

Before this week’s talks, a review of experts published in Lancet described plastics as “a serious, growing and sub-regional danger for human and planetary health”. He estimated that global health damage has increased up to 1.1 TN per year, infants and particularly vulnerable children.

However, some delegates were always full of hope. Sivendra Michael, the permanent secretary of the Fiji government for the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, “said:” There is still time. There are still processes that the president can explore. There are many other innovative processes that have worked in other multilateral contexts that can be explored.

“It is important for us to step back and reflect that we are negotiating on the verge of planetary emergency.”

The talks continue.