No agreement in sight, like the talks of the UN plastic pollution treaty enter the last day | Environmental news

Negotiations to ensure a global treaty to combat plastic pollution were in limbo while the talks entered their last day after dozens of countries rejected the last draft text.

With the time that exhausts to conclude an agreement between the 184 countries united to the United Nations In Geneva, the president of the conferences, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, produced a draft text based on the few areas of convergence, in order to find common ground.

But the project only succeeded in exasperating almost every corner, and the text was immediately shredded like one country after another torn them in pieces.

For self-proclaimed ambitious countries, it was an empty document underlying daring action such as limiting production and deleting toxic ingredients, and reduced to a waste management agreement.

And for the so-called group sharing the same ideas, with the Gulf States leading the charge, it has crossed too much of their red lines and did not do enough to reduce the scope of what they could register.

Translections towards a legally binding instrument on the fight against plastic pollution opened on August 5 and was to close on Thursday, the last attempt after five series of previous discussions in the past two and a half years that have not been able to seal an agreement.

The Valdivieso text project does not limit plastic production or does not deal with chemicals used in plastic products, which were controversial problems during talks.

A hundred countries want to limit production as well as cleaning and recycling. Many have said it was essential to treat toxic chemicals. Oil producing countries only want to eliminate plastic waste.

The largest block of countries looking for more ambitious actions has castigated what they consider a legally binding shortage of action. But the oil producing states said that the text had gone too far to their liking.

Ambition or ambition lowered for everyone?

Panama said the goal was to end plastic pollution, not just to reach an agreement.

“It is not an ambition: it is surrender,” said their negotiator.

The European Union said that the proposal was “not acceptable” and lacked “clear, robust and exploitable measures”, while Kenya said that there was “no world binding obligation on anything”.

Tuvalu, speaking for 14 developing states of the Pacific Island, said that the project was likely to produce a treaty “which did not protect our people, our culture and our ecosystem against the existential threat of plastic pollution”.

Great Britain called it a text that animates the countries “to the lowest common denominator”, and Norway said that it “did not hold our promise … to put an end to plastic pollution”.

Bangladesh said that the project “does not fundamentally manage” to reflect “the urgency of the crisis”, claiming that it did not relate to the full life cycle of plastic articles, nor their toxic chemical ingredients and their health impacts.

The oil producing states, which are called the group sharing the same ideas – and include Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran – want the treaty mainly on waste management.

Kuwait, speaking on behalf of the group, said that the text had “exceeded our red lines”, adding that “without consensus, there is no treaty that deserves to be signed”.

“It is not a question of reducing the ambition: it is a question of making the ambition possible for all,” he said.

Saudi Arabia said that there were “many red lines crossed for the Arab group” and reiterated so that the scope of the treaty is defined “once and for all”.

The United Arab Emirates said that the project “goes beyond the mandate” for talks, while Qatar said that without a clear definition of the scope, “we do not understand what obligations we enter”.

India, by supporting Kuwait, considered the project as “a fairly good starting point” to move forward on the finalization of the text.

The project could now change considerably and a new version is expected on Thursday, the last scheduled day of negotiations.

With the Geneva ministers for the last day of negotiations, environmental NGOs after the talks urged them to seize the moment.

The World Wide Fund for Nature said that the remaining hours would be “essential to overthrow this”.

“The implications of a sweetened and compromised text on people and the nature of the whole world are immense”, and the failure of Thursday “means more damage, more harm, more suffering,” he said.

The head of the Greenpeace delegation, Graham Forbes, called on the ministers to “maintain the ambition they have promised” and to approach “the deep cause: the incessant expansion of plastic production”.

The head of the delegation of the Center for International Environmental The delegation, David Azoulay, said that the project was a “mockery”, and finally reaching an agreement, he said: “It will be very difficult to come back from this.”

More than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced worldwide each year, half of which is for single -use items.

Almost half, 46%, ends up in discharges, while 17% is cremated and 22% are poorly managed and become waste.