Negotiations in Geneva on UN plastics agreement on the brink of failure

On the penultimate day of negotiations on Wednesday, oil-producing states and other countries on the one hand and representatives from the EU and Latin America and environmentalists on the other were irreconcilably opposed, with several states and the EU vehemently rejecting a new proposal for an agreement.

According to participants, oil producers such as the Gulf States, Russia and the USA are standing on the brakes because they supply the raw materials for plastics.

Rösti hopes to the end

Federal Councillor Albert Rösti "hopes to the end" for an ambitious agreement against plastic pollution. But "it's difficult", the Swiss Environment Minister told the Keystone-SDA news agency on Wednesday evening on his arrival in Geneva. He was waiting for a new draft text from Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the head of negotiations.

Like many countries, Switzerland was of the opinion that the text presented by Ecuador's Valdivieso on Wednesday afternoon was unbalanced. The Swiss proposals for global control of plastic products and a list of substances and additives to be banned were not sufficiently taken into account. Rösti was due to hold meetings with his counterparts on Wednesday evening and Thursday.

Talks on an agreement had already failed once before in Busan, South Korea, last December. The negotiators had now hoped for a breakthrough at the ten-day conference in Geneva. 184 countries are represented there, and non-governmental organizations are also taking part.

Global plastic consumption has more than doubled in almost 25 years. According to estimates for 2024, it will total 500 million tons, of which almost 400 million will end up as waste. If the situation does not stabilize, it will triple again by 2060 and rise to over 1.2 billion tons.