- Formal negotiations
- Finance
- Global review
- Global report
- Digital sequence information
- Harmful subsidies
- Marine biodiversity
- Planning, monitoring, reporting and review
- Article 8(j) implementation
- Biodiversity and climate change
- Links with other bodies
- Around the COP
- Armenian presidency
- Protests
- Lobbying and influence
- Carbon and biodiversity markets
Last month in the South Korean city of Busan, government negotiators failed to agree to set up a treaty to tackle plastic pollution, instead only deciding to continue the two years of negotiations in 2025.
While over 100 developed and developing countries wanted the treaty to limit plastic production, a handful of oil and gas reliant states – vocally led by Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran – wanted it to focus on the consumption and recycling of plastics.
Experts told Climate Home that Iran’s opposition is largely because plastic production is a lifeline to the country’s sanction-hit economy as it is a key source of foreign currency to contain soaring inflation and of jobs in some of the country’s poor and dissatisfied southern provinces.
Plastics and gas
Plastics are made from oil and gas and Iran’s plastics industry boomed after the country discovered vast natural gas reserves in the late 1980s. Iran is now by far the world’s biggest exporter of methanol, a key feedstock for making ethylene and propylene, the essential building blocks of most plastics.
The plastics industry contributed nearly 2% of Iran’s GDP in 2022 and polymers – of which plastics are a major part – was the second biggest source of export revenue in the country after oil and gas. Despite privatisation attempts, the industry remains effectively controlled by the government.
Climate Home spoke to a former senior manager in Iran’s petrochemical industry, who did not want to be named. With its “diverse range of products, critical role in employment and contributions to growth and earnings, the petrochemical industry is a cornerstone of the nation’s economy,” they said.
They said that because of the challenges posed by oil sanctions and fluctuations in crude oil exports, the foreign currency generated by exports of petrochemicals like plastics has become an important tool for managing the country’s soaring inflation rate, which is one of the worst in the world.
The Iranian government uses foreign currency to import basic staples like wheat and rice and its central bank uses foreign currency to buy the Iranian Rial, propping up its value. Both measures help control the cost of living and inflation.
Plastic production curbs are a threat to Iran’s geopolitical power too, according to Maria Ivanova, a Northeastern University professor who has followed the plastics talks. She said that much of Iran’s geopolitical power comes from controlling the supply of oil and gas and of petrochemicals. Global moves away from plastics are a “potential threat to geopolitical leverage”, she said.
Iran has also been hesitant to sign up to global treaties in general. It is one of only three countries not to have ratified the 2015 Paris climate agreement and in 2022 was one of only eight nations not to vote for a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right.
Kaveh Madani is a former deputy head of Iran’s environment department and now director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health. He told Climate Home that “historically, Iran has been under international pressure for fair and unfair reasons and is not keen on committing to agreements that may create obligations for it down the road.”
Local importance
While it is of national importance, much of the industry is located in the country’s south, close to the offshore gas reserves that are needed to make plastic and near to the ports from which it can be exported to nations like China, India and Türkiye.
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This part of the country is important politically. Its oil and gas resources are the backbone of the economy but its people are relatively poor. It is home to many religious and ethnic minorities and has been active in nationwide anti-government protests like the 2021 Khuzestan water protests and the 2022/2023 Mahsa Amini uprising. Economic instability from plastic production cuts could lead to further turmoil.
While opposing production curbs, the Iranian government has taken some measures to reduce plastic waste. After a viral campaign spearheaded by Madani and involving celebrities, the environment department banned plastic bottles of water from its offices.
Madani said that Iran is concerned with plastic pollution like other nations but, with a sanctioned economy that relies heavily on the petrochemical industry, it does not want to take measures that would put its survival at risk.
“As long as its economy is under pressure, Iran considers [plastic production curbs] as irrational and even suicidal,” he said.
The post An economic lifeline – Why Iran opposes production curbs in UN plastics treaty appeared first on Climate Home News.
An economic lifeline – Why Iran opposes production curbs in UN plastics treaty
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Countries have completed the first “global review” of their progress towards reversing nature loss by 2030 at the COP17 biodiversity talks in Yerevan, Armenia.
The review “notes with deep concern” that, unless action is “rapidly accelerated”, the goal to reverse nature loss and meet a set of 23 targets by 2030 “will not be achieved”.
It “urges” countries to accelerate action, including by “increased ambition in addressing the gaps”.
Much of the discussions in Yerevan focused on how to raise the necessary funds to help developing countries protect nature.
Some major economies pushed to expand the range of nations that are expected to provide finance, with countries agreeing at the end of the two weeks of talks that non-donors that want to contribute can “signal interest” before COP18.
This came after developed countries failed to meet a target to significantly ramp up nature finance over the last few years.
It also came as a landmark fund agreed at COP16 in Colombia to pay communities for the genetic resources derived from nature stands nearly empty two years on.
The Yerevan talks marked the halfway point of the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF), the “Paris Agreement for nature” first made in 2022 and due to be achieved by 2030.
During the nearly 12-hour-long final plenary, countries voted for Quito, Ecuador, to host the COP18 nature talks, which will be held in 2028.
Countries managed to sign off on all the major negotiation texts, marking a stark contrast to COP16, which ran so far over time that the Colombian presidency lost “quorum”, forcing talks to resume in Rome months later.
Below, Carbon Brief has detailed analysis of all of the key outcomes from COP17.
Formal negotiations
Finance
Finance, predictably, was at the heart of the discord and deadlock at the Yerevan talks.
At COP17, discussions on finance had to achieve several outcomes.
The first part – to take stock of biodiversity finance mobilised so far to meet the nature deal’s goals – fell under the global review.
As the global report noted, developed countries failed to meet their commitments to raise “at least $20bn a year by 2025” for nature. Delegates pointed to falling aid levels and a sharp 27% decline in environmental funding for the 2026-30 period.
The second part was to agree on how to mobilise resources for the next four years, to meet the GBF’s goals and targets.
Calls to “broaden the contributor base” of who pays to protect nature – and whether that should include emerging economies – became the most fraught element of the talks.
Eventually, countries agreed on what Switzerland described as a “super, mega-delicate” text. It hinged on major “political compromises”, with “no major winner or loser”, according to Kenya.
Per the decision, countries that want to be included on a list of developed country donors can “signal interest” through bilateral, confidential consultations before COP18 and every alternate COP after.
Finally, countries also agreed on criteria to shape and resource a new, permanent financial mechanism to protect nature after 2030.
However, this did not immediately take the form of a new fund under the COP that biodiverse countries have demanded since 2022, deferring the mechanism’s institutional structure to COP18.
Resource mobilisation discussions at the GBF’s halfway mark were supposed to agree on how to close the “biodiversity finance gap” and to “increase resources from all sources” to “at least” $200bn per year by 2030, as set out in target 19 of the GBF.
The talks were largely dominated by a push, led by the JUSCANZ bloc of developed countries, to “broaden the contributor base”. This could see emerging economies, such as Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia and India, being added to the list of countries that pay to protect nature.
Article 20 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) states that developed countries “shall provide new and additional financial resources” to developing countries to meet the costs of implementing measures to protect nature.
The text states that other countries – including emerging economies – may “voluntarily assume” these obligations to pay. However, it adds that this list of developed countries “shall” be reviewed periodically and amended “if necessary”.
The list was last amended in 2006.
(See this “jargon buster” which explains the specific meaning and legal weight of various terms and verbs used in UN formal documents.)
Discussions around this fraught subject had reached a dead end at intersessional talks this year, but resurfaced in Yerevan.
The first “non-paper” had four different options for expanding the contributor base. These ranged from using the World Bank’s country income groups “as a proxy” to identify high-income countries, to commissioning a study on the impacts of being included on the list.
By 21 October, the number of options swelled to eight, including two from Saudi Arabia and one from Peru.
Some countries “expressed concern” that certain options were based on a CBD secretariat study on “what constitutes a developed country”, Earth Negotiations Bulletin reported.
By the end of the first week, it was clear that the finance deadlock would have to go into informal ministerial consultations for any consensus to emerge.
At a press conference on 28 October, Christopher O’Sullivan, Ireland’s nature minister and representing the EU delegation, told Carbon Brief:
“Our position isn’t that we want to pull back in terms of contributing…but it’s been 20 years since that list was added to, times have changed and there are new realities. We just simply want those new realities reflected. I don’t fully understand why there’s so much opposition to that.”
The EU chose not to comment on which countries it would like to see on that list.
Lim Li Ching from the Third World Network, meanwhile, called the push for others to “assume the obligations” of developed countries “sheer hypocrisy”, adding that any country could make a voluntary contribution. She told Carbon Brief:
“At a forum like the CBD, this linking of income status with finance does not take into account where historical and current responsibilities lie. If you want to generate more funding for biodiversity, let’s look at sovereign debt burdens and rules, which are inequitable for developing countries. But if you can fund wars, and provide resources for your defence industry, then you know where the priorities are.”
On 29 October – at a plenary meant to adopt final texts for the most contentious subjects – Norway’s Gaute Hanssen announced that resource-mobilisation discussions would go into a smaller “friends of the chair” meeting.
Facilitated by Carolina Caceres from Canada and Imèn Meliane from Tunisia, the meeting would discuss the most contentious elements of a draft decision that had swelled to 112 brackets, denoting areas of disagreement on specific details in the text.
While the meeting was open to all, countries that were called to be present included Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, the EU, Fiji, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the UK.
At the same time, a “non-paper” text by finance and environment ministers laid out countries’ red lines and compromises.
At the end of COP17, countries welcomed a final compromise text, with Kenya thanking the “strong women” co-chairs who strove to strike a “delicate” balance.
China, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Fiji cautioned against any further interventions, with Brazil warning: “If we open this text, we will never close it again.”
While the final decision “recognises” that “contributions from more parties would improve the mobilisation” of biodiversity finance, it steered away from issuing criteria to expand the list of donor countries.
The text makes it clear that no additions to the list would be made without inviting and confidentially consulting with interested countries, to secure their explicit consent.
Instead, the CBD secretariat “invites” countries keen to be on the list and “assume the obligations” of developed countries to “signal interest” before COP18 and at every alternate COP thereafter.
At the same time, developing countries can contribute to meeting the GBF and biodiversity convention’s goals on a “voluntary basis”, with contributions not implying inclusion on the list.
A negotiator for China told Carbon Brief at the closing plenary:
“We welcome this balanced document. It was a very long discussion that has gone [on] since [2022 nature talks in] Nairobi. But actually this time, there were a lot of sensitive issues, [there were] a lot of critical things we didn’t open in the contact groups; it mainly went to the high-level discussion.”
The decision also establishes a financial mechanism for nature funding after 2030 under the governance of the COP, a key ask from developing countries.
However, it defers decisions on what form this mechanism would take – whether this would be a new fund or based on existing arrangements – until COP18.
Oscar Soria at the Common Initiative told Carbon Brief that the decision on the financial mechanism leaves things “very open”, with “no movement” towards a new fund or money and no upgrades to existing funding arrangements.
The text acknowledges the links between debt and biodiversity eight times, mentioning how debt-related instruments can be included in biodiversity plans, but does not go further.
“It is almost as if the debt studies they called for at COP16 didn’t happen,” said Soria, who had earlier flagged serious methodological issues with the first-ever COP-commissioned report on debt and biodiversity.
Global review
In Yerevan, countries agreed on the first stocktake of progress towards the 2030 nature targets – known as the “global review”.
The review was one of the keenly anticipated outcomes from COP17 and was seen as less controversial than some of the other major negotiation strands.
It was swiftly signed off by countries at the start of the final COP17 plenary, with just one last-minute addition.
The concept of carrying out a global review on “collective progress” was set out in the GBF and its underlying documents.
The details of how this review would be carried out were supposed to be agreed at COP16, but it was not discussed before the plenary in Cali was suspended for loss of “quorum”. It was instead adopted at the resumed COP16 negotiations in Rome in February 2025.
The global review was based largely on the findings of the global report and other information provided by countries.
The final text “welcomes” and also “notes with deep concern” the findings of the global report. It then homes in on various ways countries can increase their biodiversity action to get on track to meet the targets.
As of 19 October, when COP17 officially began, the non-paper contained 152 brackets, which indicate areas of disagreement in UN texts.
Smaller “contact group” discussions took place to try and reduce the number of brackets throughout the first week. This group was co-chaired by Sanne Kruid from the Netherlands and Sivendra Michael from Fiji.
A few days into the talks, Kruid told Carbon Brief that the progress on the global review was “relatively positive”, with countries “engaging quite well”.
One contentious section of the 11-page text was paragraph 15, which “urges” countries to accelerate implementation of nature targets, “including by increased ambition” in addressing key challenges.
Some developing countries were wary of including the word “ambition” in this section, arguing that higher ambition requires more nature finance, which is already falling “far sh