The chair of this month’s penultimate round of talks to agree a global treaty on tackling plastic pollution is concerned that certain countries “seem to have forgotten” that all nations originally backed an ambitious pact.
Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, who will host the talks in Ottawa starting on April 23, said in an interview with Climate Home that all governments had “agreed collectively that we wanted an ambitious treaty to fight plastic pollution and to eliminate it by 2040”.
But, he added, “unfortunately some countries seem to have forgotten that’s what we agreed upon [at the United Nations Environment Assembly] almost two years ago. I’m going to make it my mission in life in the coming weeks to remind everyone that this is our collective agreement.”
He did not specify which countries appear to be backtracking, but noted that some “are in more of a hurry than others” to get a deal – “which is why you have a high-ambition coalition”.
That coalition is pushing for a strong accord to end plastic pollution and includes all large developed countries except the United States, plus some developing nations.
The members of the self-described “high-ambition coalition” are coloured in light blue.
Guilbeault was speaking during the latest UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) in Nairobi last month, where some governments tried to water down anti-plastics language.
David Azoulay, from the Center for International Environmental Law, told Climate Home “a number of countries” had tried at this year’s UNEA to “get around or away” from the mandate to set up a plastics treaty.
They did not propose a rival resolution, he said, “probably because they saw there was very little appetite for it”. But that did not stop them from attempting to use the assembly to influence the plastics treaty negotiations, he added. The talks are organised by the United Nations Environment Programme.
In submissions to the UNEA, the US tried to delete the words “legally binding” in reference to the plastics treaty, Iran wanted to remove “ambitious”, and Saudi Arabia attempted to cut a reference to accelerating the treaty talks.
Russia’s ambassador to Kenya, Dmitry Maksimychev, told the UNEA that Russia is an “active participant” in the talks and “we do not support shifting emphasis to restrictive measures of a productive or commercial nature”.
Plastics support fossil fuel demand
Over the last two years, government negotiators have gathered for three rounds of talks on setting up the treaty to tackle plastic pollution.
The fourth round will be held in Ottawa this month, and the fifth and supposedly final session will be in the South Korean city of Busan in November. The agreement should then be adopted officially at a diplomatic conference in 2025.
BP expects the share of oil demand from non-combusted (grey) sectors like plastic to rise in the next few decades. (Photo: BP/Screenshot)
Plastics are made from oil and gas, and their production causes 3% of greenhouse gas emissions. The fossil fuel industry predicts that as demand for oil and gas for energy falls, they can make up for it by selling their products to plastic manufacturers.
New estimates from the US-based Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory show plastic production emits as much carbon pollution each year (2.24 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2019) as 600 coal-fired power plants.
A study published by the lab on Thursday, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Beyond Petrochemicals campaign, warned that carbon pollution from plastic production could triple by 2050.
And even if global power grids shift over to clean energy, the plastic industry’s share of the global carbon budget could rise from just over 5 percent now to more than 20 percent by mid-century, based on conservative projections for industry growth, it added.
Plastic litter also makes flooding – already exacerbated by climate change – worse.
In Zambia, Lwenga Mulela, whose company converts plastic waste into useful products like paving and plant pots, told Climate Home plastic bottles pile up in drainage channels in the nearby capital Lusaka and stop rain escaping down the drain, causing flooding on the streets.
Lwenga Mulela shows plastic wrappers which she turns into products like paving on March 12 24. (Photo: Joe Lo)
During a brief rainstorm in Lusaka’s Central Business District in March, Climate Home saw cars slowing to a crawl to pass through puddles and pedestrians jumping over water to stay dry.
Money talks
The UN treaty negotiations have so far been divided on whether to focus on the production of plastic, potentially through targets to reduce it, as the “high-ambition coalition” and climate campaigners want.
The alternative is to limit its scope to expanding recycling of plastic, as the industry itself and the US, Saudi Arabia and others are calling for.
Asked if plastic production should be in the treaty, Canada’s Guilbeault said: “We have to look at every element of plastic pollution.” But asked about the biggest remaining divides, he pointed to finance.
Many countries, particularly small islands, “receive an incredible amount of plastic pollution that they’re not responsible for, and there should be an international mechanism to help them deal with the problem,” he said.
Activists clean up a beach in Fiji in 2016 (Photo: Kurt Peterson/Greenpeace)
“Right now with the economic situation internationally – high interest rates, high inflation – it’s a difficult conversation but it’s a necessary conversation nonetheless,” he added.
This was highlighted by Madagascar’s representative at the UNEA who said his country backed a plastics treaty and was “insisting on the need to prepare global countries of the south and support them in this regard”.
In Zambia, entrepreneur Mulela also called for finance for developing countries to develop waste disposal and recycling systems. She said the companies that produce the plastic should provide that funding, as should richer nations.
“I think they have an obligation,” she said. “It’s a global village, so what is affecting one part of the world is also affecting every other part of the world.”
Approval by consensus or vote?
If governments do not unanimously agree on a text in November, a treaty could be endorsed through a two-thirds majority vote – but, for many negotiators, that would be a last resort.
Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, head of the secretariat responsible for the talks, told Climate Home “there is no wish on any member state’s part to actually have a vote on substance… so for us, we hope that we will adopt this treaty with consensus, without a vote.”
But, for campaigners like Greenpeace’s Graham Forbes, the apparent unwillingness to vote could end up weakening or delaying the treaty as he argued that a process based on consensus has enabled low-ambition countries to “undermine substantive progress”.
“Voting would enable member states that are serious about addressing the issue to negotiate a treaty that actually gets at the core of the issue: reducing plastic production and use,” he said.
Guilbeault took the middle-ground, noting that not every country has to agree to something for it to be adopted by consensus.
He wants the new treaty “to have as much buy-in as possible from as many countries as possible but, at the same time, I don’t think the world should be held hostage to the interest of a few countries – that’s not consensus either.”
The talks in Ottawa are tasked with narrowing down the draft text for the treaty. Guilbeault said he hopes to see 75-80% of it agreed this month, but added that the thorniest issues will be left to Busan in November.
(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Megan Rowling)
The post Canadian minister vows to fight attempts to weaken plastic pollution treaty appeared first on Climate Home News.
Canadian minister vows to fight attempts to weaken plastic pollution treaty
Delegates will soon gather in the Turkish resort city of Antalya for UN climate negotiations, against a backdrop of war, energy crisis and climate extremes.
At COP31, nations will try to find agreement on various issues, including climate finance for developing countries and a global “just transition” towards a cleaner economy.
This summit is unusual due to its joint presidency, which means that Australia is leading the negotiations while Turkey hosts the conference.
Outside the formal negotiations, Turkey is also pushing its own priorities as part of a wider “action agenda”, including electrification, oceans and “green industrialisation”.
In order to track parties’ positions on key negotiating points and wider issues at COP31, Carbon Brief has analysed around 100 documents and captured them in the interactive table below.
The first column shows the countries and UN negotiating blocs, the second shows the topics up for debate and the third indicates specific issues within those topics.
The final column indicates the positions that the parties have expressed on each topic. These range from “priority” – meaning the party is likely to be pushing the issue – to “oppose”, meaning it is likely to push against it.
This is a “living document” that will be updated over the course of COP31.
Please get in touch if you would like to offer additions by emailing policy@carbonbrief.org.
Brief explanations of the key issues and jargon-filled language that permeate the talks can be found below the interactive table.
Just transition
At COP30 in Brazil in 2025, nations agreed to establish a practical mechanism to help drive a “just transition” to a low-carbon economy.
Key aspects of this “Belém-Antalya mechanism” (BAM) – often referred to as the “just transition mechanism” (JTM) – were agreed during the June climate negotiations this year, but many details are missing and dividing lines remain between parties.
Parties have disagreed about the scope of the mechanism and whether it should be tied to the provision of finance.
Nevertheless, following progress in June within the “just transition work programme” (JTWP), civil society groups highlighted that getting the mechanism up and running is a “key expected outcome” from COP31.
Climate finance
Climate finance is always a highly contested issue at UN climate negotiations.
Developing countries have successfully pushed for a “work programme” on climate finance to feature on the conference agenda.
These parties see this programme as a way to pressure developed countries into providing more funding from their public coffers, specifically under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement. Some are even proposing a “burden sharing” arrangement for climate-finance provision.
This comes against a backdrop of major donors cutting their aid budgets and the Trump administration in the US pressuring multilateral development banks (MDBs) to drop their climate objectives.
Developed countries, which have traditionally been responsible for providing finance, would prefer to keep a broader focus on issues such as improving access to existing finance and broadening the range of donors. Some developing countries, such as small-island states, also support these goals.
Nations have also been discussing Article 2.1c of the Paris Agreement under the “Veredas dialogue”. This focuses on making all global “financial flows” consistent with climate action.
Countries have different views about what this involves, with developing countries again hoping to keep the focus on developed countries’ responsibilities to financially support them.
Adaptation and mitigation
At negotiations in June, parties were unable to agree on the details of a “global goal on adaptation” (GGA), which is intended to drive climate adaptation worldwide.
Having agreed at COP30 on a list of 59 “indicators” – ways to assess progress towards the GGA – nations now need to refine these before COP32 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This is a highly technical process that involves a taskforce working out how to use and track these indicators.
Broadly, developing countries stress the importance of finance to fund adaptation efforts, rather than simply to track progress. They also want reassurances about a pledge made last year to “triple adaptation finance”.
At the June climate negotiations, negotiators also failed to make any progress when discussing the mitigation work programme (MWP) – the only formal agenda item that concerns cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Among other things, parties disagreed on whether the MWP should continue running over the next few years, or simply be brought to a close.
Global stocktake and NDCs
Back in 2023, the first “global stocktake” (GST) of the Paris Agreement set out the state of climate action and what needed to be done to set the world on course.
On mitigation, nations agreed to a package of measures, including “transitioning away from fossil fuels”, tripling renewable energy and “halting and reversing deforestation” by 2030.
Some of these outcomes remain contentious among certain parties, particularly large, developing countries and those with economies that rely on fossil-fuel exports.
Developing countries have persistently argued that they need more climate finance to implement the global stocktake outcomes.
Parties were meant to update their climate plans under the Paris Agreement, informed by the first global stocktake, by 2025. These plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), cover the period out to 2035.
So far, only 150 parties – responsible for three-quarters of global emissions – have submitted new NDCs.
Iran, Vietnam, Egypt and Argentina are among those without new NDCs – and the US has withdrawn its climate plan under the Trump administration.
Some parties, such as the EU, have stressed the need for countries to submit their new NDCs ahead of COP31 – and to ensure they are aligned with the 1.5C temperature limit.
COP31 will also see the launch of the second global stocktake, which will conclude in 2028.
Action agenda and other issues
Turkey will be pushing its “action agenda” priorities at COP31, including global targets for electrification, reducing waste and reducing building-sector emissions.
(The Australian “presidency of negotiations” is intending to pursue a “cover text” decision at COP31 that may capture some of these wider targets, such as the electrification goal.)
The action agenda is meant to provide a complementary track to the formal negotiations, where governments and non-state actors can advance specific, real-world solutions.
A new COP31 presidency effort dubbed the “climate implementation bridge” is also meant to complement these ambitions by turning NDC goals into an “investable project portfolio”
Some parties have explicitly signalled their support for various elements beyond the formal negotiations, in the run-up to COP31.
For example, a joint letter signed by 105 parties called for COP31 to “put the ocean at the heart of climate action” by embedding ocean-based climate action in the UNFCCC architecture.
The post Interactive: Who wants what at the COP31 climate change summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interactive: Who wants what at the COP31 climate change summit
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