The world’s first plastics treaty is in crisis: can it be salvaged?

Important conversations about what could become first-ever global agreement to limit plastic pollution collapsed last month amid acrimony and mistrust. Hopes for an agreement were dealt another blow this week when Ecuadorian Ambassador Luis Vayas Valdivieso resigned as chairman Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) for the treaty.

Plastic pollution is on the rise – planned UN treaty to curb it must be ambitious

At the last meeting of the INC, held in August in Geneva, negotiations lasted until late at night, but ended unsuccessfully. It is unclear whether the new chairman will convene another meeting of the INC or decide to end the process that ended without an agreement. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the body overseeing the negotiations, will meet in Nairobi in December to consider the issue.

Nature spoke to Samuel Winton, a researcher at the University of Portsmouth in the UK who is studying the treaty's implementation, about what went wrong and what can be done to salvage the process to end one of humanity's greatest scourges on the planet.

Why do we need a global treaty to end plastic pollution?

Plastics is a global supply chain, and we often see in policy that when interventions are targeted at one part of the supply chain in one country, the impact is very minimal. For example, a ban on plastic bags, whether successful or not, has a relatively small impact. The Global Compact provides an opportunity for countries to work together strategically to take truly meaningful action. Despite the complexities of this process, I remain convinced that a plastics treaty is necessary.

How important is it that Ambassador Vaias Valdivieso resigned?

This is very important. The role of the chair in these processes is extremely important, as he determines the work plan and guides the discussions. Having a different person chair the next meeting (assuming there will be one) will have a big impact on how those negotiations go.

So what would be the best case scenario now?

We must be ambitious but realistic. I don't think it's realistic—and I'm not convinced it's necessary—to say that we're going to limit plastic production to a certain level by a certain date. I strive to create a global environment where alternative business models or products will be chosen by the market despite bans on certain plastics. These could be rules that encourage reuse and refilling, or rules that help businesses switch to alternative models that reduce the amount of plastic they use.

Did the negotiations bring anything positive?

Significant progress has been made among Coalition of High Ambitions countries (a group that includes the European Union, the UK and more than 50 other countries) in understanding where each other's red lines lie and how countries can work together. And we're seeing countries like China move toward a more moderate position. But there are other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia, a “like-minded group” whose positions have not changed at all.

When a process is driven by consensus and several countries refuse to move on certain issues, it becomes very difficult to make progress. Another obstacle to progress is the lack of more strategic efforts to move the process forward. The high-ambition coalition, for example, has stated that they are not a negotiating bloc. A real negotiating bloc could help achieve more progress than we have seen.

What must happen now for the agreement to go beyond the line?

We need to reach a point where countries and process leaders can work together to break the current impasse. Many people will tell you that this can be done using a voting mechanism, and that would be great. However, a number of countries and UNEP itself are categorically against the introduction of voting, so this looks very problematic.