Plastics Treaty: Understanding the First Week of Negotiations

Plastics Treaty: Understanding the First Week of Negotiations

RITURAJ PHUKAN

The global push for a plastics treaty has been building for years and the talks resumed with ministers and negotiators returning to Geneva on 5 August, with much of the architecture of a possible deal already on the table.

This included a Chair’s Text from December 2024, mountains of bracketed options, and a long list of political flashpoints.

The aim of negotiations is to deal with plastics across their life cycle- design, production, use and disposal- and to wrestle with the health and environmental risks of additives and microplastics.

But the first five days made it plain that the plastic treaty’s fate would be decided as much by politics and bargaining as it will be by technical drafting.

The first day of talks opened with a plenary in the morning and meetings of various contact groups which extended into the evening. Delegates were immersed in the Chair’s Text and split into contact groups to work, with the beginning of a procession of technical papers and compromise options that would shape the week. There was universal acknowledgement of the need for a deal, but many party positions were firmly planted during the negotiations.

In the subsequent days, contact groups and “informal informals” pushed through technical discussions on reporting, monitoring and implementation language, while the big political questions including production controls, chemicals of concern, and finance lurked at the centre of every session.

Differences remained in the bracketed options where politics mattered most; On Article 9 (existing or “legacy” plastic pollution), delegates argued over language and whether remediation guidance from the COP should be mandatory or voluntary – a dispute that speaks to deeper differences about obligations versus guidance.

An important thread of negotiations was on how to treat treated chemicals in plastics. Delegates took up detailed, technical exchanges on whether to require disclosure of additives, how to identify “chemicals of concern,” and how the new treaty would interact with existing chemicals regimes.

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Some delegations pushed for tighter, product-level rules and clear phase-outs while others warned that any overly prescriptive global rules could conflict with national systems and hinder innovation. These evolving technical negotiations will determine whether the treaty can meaningfully reduce toxic exposures linked to plastics.

Finance was another major issue with persistent calls from developing countries for a predictable, grant-focused finance mechanism to help with infrastructure, waste systems and transition to alternatives.

As has been the trend in other global negotiations related to climate change and biodiversity, wealthier states continued to lean toward blended finance and project-based support. Without credible, publicly financed support, many developing countries warned binding production or design rules would be unattainable in practice.

Politics surfaced in sharper form on 8 August with strong resistance on production-side measures from petrochemical-producing states. Petrostates tabled proposals and counterproposals that sought to narrow the treaty’s objective toward management of waste rather than supply-side limits.

The United States sought an amendment to narrow the treaty objectives toward management, a development that could reshape the negotiating dynamics if adopted. Whether that amendment gains traction will be central to the success of these talks.

The first week delivered useful housekeeping and technical progress, but it also reaffirmed the three red lines that will decide the treaty’s ambition: production controls, chemical regulation, and finance.

The negotiations reflect a familiar UN negotiation pattern – technical narrowing first, followed by intense political horse-trading – and signals that the crucial bargaining will now move into smaller, closed-door package negotiations designed to link contentious items together.

What we can expect is trades that pair some binding language on products or certain plastics with finance and transition support, or that decisions that will leave the hardest implementation details to later protocols or subsidiary bodies.

Outside the negotiating rooms, civil society and youth groups were active and vocal throughout the week, pressing for a treaty that actually bends production trajectories rather than merely managing waste. They are also scrutinising industry influence in Geneva, a persistent concern that could have huge repercussions on the negotiations.

 The first week set the table and clarified stakes but did not resolve the big political choices. It remains to be seen whether negotiators will stitch together a politically credible package that balances ambition with finance and flexibility, or the session ends with core disagreements unresolved, leaving the process to limp forward in future meetings.

Rituraj Phukan: Founder, Indigenous People’s Climate Justice Forum; Co-Founder, Smily Academy ;National Coordinator for Biodiversity, The Climate Reality Project India; Member, IUCN Wilderness Specialist Group; Commission Member – IUCN WCPA Climate Change, IUCN WCPA Connectivity Conservation, IUCN WCPA Indigenous People and Protected Areas Specialist Groups, IUCN WCPA South Asia Region and IUCN WCPA-SSC Invasive Alien Species Task Force; Member, International Antarctic Expedition 2013; Climate Force Arctic 2019 ; Ambassador, Marine Arctic Peace Sanctuary. Rituraj Phukan is the Climate Editor, Mahabahu and Convenor, Mahabahu Climate Forum.

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