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
The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.
From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon.
A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Climate Change
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.
ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.
Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.
“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”
The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]
ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]
Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”
Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.
-ENDS-
Images available in Greenpeace Media Library
Notes:
[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.
[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee
[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.
[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
The Trump administration’s relentless rollback of public health and environmental protections has allowed widespread toxic exposures to flourish, warn experts who helped implement safeguards now under assault.
In a new report that outlines a dozen high-risk pollutants given new life thanks to weakened, delayed or rescinded regulations, the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency staff, warns that the EPA under President Donald Trump has abandoned the agency’s core mission of protecting people and the environment from preventable toxic exposures.
Former EPA Staff Detail Expanding Pollution Risks Under Trump
A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
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