Plastic pollution: in South Korea, one week to find an agreement with more than 170 countries

Barely had the COP29 on climate ended in Azerbaijan djan, representatives from more than 170 countries are meeting in South Korea on Monday with the fragile hope of forging the first ambitious international treaty aimed at eliminating plastic pollution in the oceans, the 'air and soils of the planet.

After two years of debate, this fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC5), in the coastal city of Busan facing Japan, is expected to result on December 1 in a “legally binding” text to combat pollution.

The figures for global plastic addiction are staggering.

According to the OECD, if nothing is done, consumption on the planet is expected to triple by 2060 compared to 2019, to 1.2 billion tons per year, and discharges into the environment are expected to double to 44 million tons of plastic waste. Today, only 9% of the world's plastic is recycled.

Other key figures: greenhouse gas emissions from plastics, derived from fossil fuels – which already exceed those from air transport – are expected to “more than double” by 2060, to 4.3 billion tonnes of CO2, according to the OECD.

Produced mainly in Asia, plastics, light, strong and cheap, “miracle substances” when they emerged in the 1950s, have become “eternal substances”, denounces Sunita Narain, director general of the Centre for Environmental Sciences in New Delhi.

Degraded into micro and then nano-plastics and accumulated at the bottom of rivers or in the soil, “they have literally become (…) the symbol of our inability to manage the materials that we have created,” she said Tuesday during a press presentation.

– “Moment of truth” –

The negotiations during this seven-day diplomatic marathon are a “moment of truth,” warned the director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the Danish Inger Andersen, at the beginning of the month.

“Busan can and must mark the end of the negotiations,” she added.

But despite the observation shared by the scientific community, the drafting of an ambitious international treaty – unanimously according to UN standards – will be very difficult to maintain, according to several sources interviewed.

“Everyone wants an end to plastic pollution,” but we need “more convergence,” Andersen summed up.

Plastic: recycling, source of microplastics © AFP – Nalini LEPETIT-CHELLA, Paz PIZARRO

Strong and antagonistic blocs emerged during the four previous negotiation sessions in Uruguay, France, Kenya and Canada.

On one side, a group of so-called high-ambition countries (European Union, Rwanda, Peru, etc.). They are demanding that the future treaty cover plastic over its “entire lifespan” and are demanding an obligation to reduce global production.

On the other, a more informal group, called “like-minded”, mainly groups together oil-producing countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia.

They are keen to tackle only the second part of the life of plastics, when the yoghurt pot or fishing net has become waste.

This group only wants to talk about recycling and waste flow management, or even eco-design, but without tackling the upstream part of production linked to petrochemicals.

– “Not ambitious enough” –

The working document, a draft treaty of more than 70 pages on which the delegates are relying, has been criticised. Too long and too many divergent opinions left in parentheses.

The life cycle of plastic, far from circular © AFP – Valentin RAKOVSKY, Jean-Michel CORNU

The diplomat chairing the debates published a more concise alternative document of 17 pages to try to synthesize the positions, including the need to promote the reuse of plastics.

“The text is not ambitious enough,” judges a European diplomat requesting anonymity. “It makes no reference to a reduction in plastic production, limiting itself to evoking a 'sustainable level' of production,” but no one knows what that really means, he emphasizes.

As at the climate COP, the position of the United States and that of China will be closely scrutinized. Neither has made a clear commitment, and Donald Trump's election only adds to the doubts about the treaty's ambition.

“A huge majority” of countries support legally binding measures covering the entire lifespan of plastics, says Eirik Lindebjerg, who is following the debates for the NGO WWF.

According to him, “it is now up to the leaders of these two countries to deliver the treaty that the world needs and not let a handful of countries or industrial interests stop” the process.

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