Thousands of delegates gathered at the South Korean port city of Busan on Monday for the official start of the fifth and final Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) meeting to finalise an unprecedented legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution.
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The talks are being held amid reports of significant divisions among member states, particularly on contentious issues such as limiting plastic production, casting doubts on whether an agreement will be reached. A previous round of talks in Ottawa in April ended without an agreement on such a cap.
Speaking at the opening plenary, INC5 chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Inger Anderson both expressed confidence that a legally binding instrument will be reached.
The start of the talks also mark exactly 1,000 days since the “historic gavelling” of a resolution by the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) that paved the way for the treaty, said Anderson.
Compared to other multilateral deals which were “decades in the making”, there has been good progress on this treaty, she said. “But plastic pollution also operates on a different time scale. Some plastics can take up to 1,000 years to decompose. And even then, they break into ever smaller particles that persist, pervade and pollute,” she stressed.
Plastic waste comprises 80 per cent of all marine pollution, with an estimated 8 to 10 million metric tonnes entering the oceans annually. Global plastic production has soared from 2.3 million tonnes in 1950 to 448 million tonnes by 2015 – with this figure expected to double by 2050, observed Valdivieso.
“The economic costs are profound, with ocean plastic pollution imposing an estimated annual burden of US$2.5 trillion on the global economy,” he said, adding that the detection of microplastics in human organs also raises concerns for serious health risks including cancer and reproductive issues. “The numbers highlight why this treaty is essential.”
From left: Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, Executive Secretary, INC Secretariat; Han Min Young, Director-General for Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Scientific Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea; Luis Vayas Valdivieso, INC Chair; Inger Andersen, Executive Director, UN Environment Programme. Image: Jessica Cheam/ Eco-Business.
Anderson called on member states to focus on finding common ground on three main unresolved issues: the regulation of harmful chemicals, agreeing on a sustainable level of plastic production, and financing.
Noting that there is a clear opportunity to “list the obvious harmful chemicals” found in human food and bodies, Anderson urged negotiators to establish a process for listing these chemicals as “some of these are known and listed in some global settings, while others are not”.
Also known as “forever chemicals”, these substances have been linked to disruptions to the endocrine system and have been found to leak from plastic products still in use and in those that are discarded, posing a danger to human health and national ecosystems.
“We need to… establish a process for listing other things as they may emerge or are yet to be identified. Are there specific items we can live without? Those that very often leak into the environment? Are there alternatives to these? This is an issue we have to agree on,” she said at a media briefing.
On the contentious issue of production caps, which have been widely called for but opposed by plastic-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, Anderson urged negotiators to refer to the UNEA resolution adopted in 2022 which includes a mandate to promote sustainable plastic production and consumption, while taking a life cycle approach.
“My plea here is to use this (resolution) as your guiding star, while recognising that national plans and reporting will offer a critical tool for parties to ensure adherence to the agreements that you may strike,” she added.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one negotiator from an Asian country said he was hopeful that an agreement will be reached this week. A group of countries are proposing the setting up of a technical body to study how production curbs would work and for what type of plastics, adding that any decision made must be “guided by science”.
Anderson also called for parties to refer to the UNEA resolution “which speaks to a dedicated multilateral fund that needs to be established”.
“I’m asking that the negotiators use that language and outline the broad contours of how this mechanism would work,” she said. “There is a great public and political desire across the world to get this done… so let’s get a strong start without lowering the bar that the treaty could potentially become meaningless,” she warned.
Earlier in the day, environmental non-profit Greenpeace unfurled a flag with a giant eye comprised of thousands of portraits near Busan Exhibition and Convention Center, home to the talks for the week.
Greenpeace head of delegation to the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations Graham Forbes said that ”governments must choose meaningful action over fossil fuel and petrochemical interests”.
“A weak treaty is a failed treaty. We need an ambitious legally binding agreement to curb plastic production and end single-use plastics, to protect our health, communities, climate, and planet.”
UNEP has said this fifth meeting – coming after sessions held in Uruguay, France, Kenya, and Canada in the past two years – had the highest level of participation, with 1,400 member delegations and 2,000 observer delegates registered.
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There is a great public and political desire across the world to get this done… so let’s get a strong start without lowering the bar that the treaty could potentially become meaningless.
Inder Anderson, Executive Director, UN Environment Programme
Ahead of the talks, the INC chair had circulated a non-paper that deals with issues such as product design, emissions and releases, waste management and legacy pollution, which he said “builds on the common ground among INC members and identifies areas where some work could be deferred “to a later stage.”
Industry representatives such as Colm Jordan, global head of advocacy and education at Indorama Ventures, one of the world’s largest producers of polyester chains, who travelled from Ireland to South Korea to observe the negotiations said it’s obvious that there is “a lot of work to do”.
Jordan said businesses also need to be involved in the talks as tackling plastic pollution requires major reverse logistics, cutting edge sorting, recycling and reuse technology. “Business also needs government to ensure a fair and level playing field,” he said.
Negotiations in Busan are happening on the heels of contentious global climate talks which concluded over the weekend in Baku, Azerbaijan. Acknowledging this, Anderson noted that the Paris Agreement “took 21 years to get to a target” and called for more urgency for fighting plastic pollution.
“We do not have 21 years. Part of the wisdom of the UNEA resolution was that it set an expedited time schedule of two years to get this done, with legally binding targets, and [looking at] the entire lifecycle. We are not going to wait 21 years.”
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