Negotiations for a global plastics treaty ended on Dec. 2, without a consensus on how to curb plastic pollution despite its increasing negative impacts on people and nature. The fifth meeting of the U.N. Environment Programme’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) in Busan, South Korea was expected to produce a legally binding global treaty covering the entire life cycle of plastic, from its production to consumption and disposal. However, the around 170 negotiating countries failed to agree on key decisions, primarily on curbing production, pushing the talks to continue at a later date, Reuters reported. More than 100 countries, led by Panama, called for creating a pathway toward setting targets for reducing plastic production, although they suggested agreeing on specific numbers in the future. However, oil-producing countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia, alongside trade groups such as the American Chemistry Council, opposed the cap on production of plastic, which is derived from oil and gas byproducts. They instead pushed for a voluntary deal to focus on plastic waste, The Washington Post reported. Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s lead negotiator, said the stalled talks were a “moral failure.” “What we saw in Busan was a weaponization of consensus by a small number of countries to stall progress and undermine the negotiations,” David Azoulay, director of environmental health at the Center for International Environment Law (CIEL), said in a statement. CIEL environment health campaigner Rachel Radvany said the U.S. could have played an important role in the negotiations, but it “refused to push…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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