Carla Worth, Head of Policy at Common Seas, makes the case for bold collaboration following the breakdown of talks to agree a Global Plastics Treaty.
For many working in global environmental policy, last week’s announcement that the High Seas Treaty will enter into force next January was a much-needed dose of positivity in the wake of floundering multilateralism.
Since Plastics Treaty talks once again failed to reach a conclusion in Geneva this August, faith has continued to falter in the ability of international law-making to address the most pressing challenges of our time.
INC5.2 saw negotiations adjourned with no indication of a timeline for continuation, despite already being more than 250 days over schedule. With the Chair’s text from the end of INC5.1 in Busan identified as the starting point for future talks, it would be easy to feel like no progress was made in Geneva.
The silver lining is that ambitious parties collectively succeeded in resisting efforts to force through a weak treaty. One that would have overlooked production, allowed action to remain voluntary, and made it difficult to strengthen commitments over time.
We also saw a real rise in collective resolve, with member states, observers and rightsholders alike mobilising to demand a treaty text that reflects the ambition of the majority.
What’s needed to change the trajectory?
Yet, the question of how to move forward remains. As civil society demonstrators highlighted in the final days of INC5.2, we must ‘fix the process’ if we are to achieve a full lifecycle treaty capable of delivering the mandate of UNEA Resolution 5/14.
The biggest risk going forward is to continue with an approach that is clearly not working. Doing so would almost certainly end in the same result we saw in Geneva and Busan.
With low-ambition countries continuing to hold the talks hostage under the banner of consensus-based decision-making, many parties are calling for member states to invoke voting.
Others are encouraging ambitious states to consider moving outside of the UN framework in what many are referring to as a ‘coalition of the willing’.
The theory here is that consuming countries would over time push petrostates to reduce plastic production by driving a drop in demand. With a large enough majority committed to ambitious rules, compliance could be incentivised via market dynamics.
An example can be observed in the landmines agreement of the late nineties. Here, delays brought about by insistence on consensus pushed a coalition of committed states to develop the Ottawa Process (outside the original, stalled negotiations) and eventually deliver the Mine Ban Treaty, which is now ratified by over 160 countries.
Of course, these options will all entail their own challenges. With UNEA-7 and the ratification of the High Seas Treaty on the horizon, perhaps we can hope for a surge in political will to chart a new course.
But the High Seas Treaty took 20 years of negotiations to reach this point. One thing is for sure: we can’t wait two decades for a global treaty on plastic pollution.
How we’re accelerating national and regional action
Every year, 11 million tonnes of plastic enter the ocean. It cannot be contained by the policies of countries acting in isolation.
However, to drive action while negotiations continue – and to ensure effective implementation of the future treaty – we also need to see concerted coordinated policy action at the national and regional levels.
With this in mind, Common Seas brought together a group of organisations to explore pathways to drive effective, ambitious national action on plastic pollution in line with a future Global Plastics Treaty.
In Geneva, we launched a new National Planning Working Group on Plastic Action, including Common Seas, Global Plastic Action Partnership of the World Economic Forum, Global Plastics Policy Centre, IUCN, World Bank, WRAP Plastics Pact Network and Eunomia Research & Consulting.
The working group launched an Insights Paper highlighting the elements of effective national planning on plastic pollution, drawing on our collective experience supporting national planning in over 60 countries to date.
Our goal is to drive greater harmonisation and give countries confidence to take impactful policy action. This harmonisation will be essential for effective implementation of the Plastics Treaty – but there’s no need to wait. Countries can – and must – act now.
As we navigate a path ahead that UNEP Executive Director Inger Anderson herself described as ‘perilous’, regional coordination will also play a key role in providing a much-needed bridge between global policy and national initiatives.
For an example of this, we can look towards Small Island Developing States. Despite occupying less than 0.5% of the Earth’s land surface, SIDS collectively steward 30% of the world’s ocean. They are also disproportionately impacted by the plastics crisis.
Since the first INC, SIDS countries have been particularly well aligned in advocating for a high-ambition treaty. Regional negotiation blocs like AOSIS, GRULAC and the Africa Group have played a key role in clearly articulating a unified SIDS voice, calling for recognition of their unique circumstances and requirements.
This is particularly important considering how challenging it can be for SIDS to attend and meaningfully contribute to international negotiations, due to limited funding for delegates. Beyond the halls of UN talks, regional coordination remains particularly important for SIDS.
With thousands of tons of legacy plastics washing up on their shores every day, SIDS cannot solve their plastic problem without global collaboration on upstream measures to stop pollution at the source.
A treaty remains crucial
For SIDS in particular, stalling progress presents a pressing existential threat. For example, the tiny remote country of Tuvalu is recognised for being among the most vocal and ambitious states involved in Plastics Treaty negotiations, to the extent that it is currently the chair of Pacific SIDS.
Yet our analysis found that, even after making leading evidence-based policy interventions, Tuvalu will only be able to reduce plastic pollution by 40% over the next ten years, compared to the 75% average we usually see when working with other coastal countries.
Clearly, this is not enough. Tuvalu and other frontline countries need a global treaty to stop plastic pollution at the source. They also need cross-sectoral collaboration at the regional and national levels to turn commitments into action.
To move forward from Geneva, we need true collaboration and courage in multilateral environmentalism at every level. The future of our ocean – and of our communities – relies upon it.