Photo Credit: Ottawa march for a Plastics Treaty coutesy FoEI via X
The United Nations Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Global Plastics Treaty is holding its fourth meeting in Ottawa, Canada from 23–29 April 2024 to prepare a treaty by the end of 2024. Global Plastics pollution is an escalating Crisis that interlinks with the Biodiversity Crisis and Climate Crisis. The Health and environmental impacts of plastics, microplastics and nanoplastics are of increasing concern as more research is done. (See Background Science).
The process for a Global Plastics Treaty was started in March 2022 at the resumed fifth session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-5.2). See my reports of INC1, INC2, INC3.
A Zero Draft of the treaty has been prepared with elements of both common rules for all parties, and a nationally driven policy framework, and many procedural issues still to sort out. Australia is a member of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastics Pollution, which put out this joint Ministerial statement before INC4.
UNEP INC4 website | CIEL INC4 preparatory work | Break Free From Plastic News |
IPEN | Minderoo Foundation
This is a Frequently updated article.
26 April - Day 4
The IISD/ENB In the Corridors informal summary of Friday's negotiation report:
26 April 2024, Plastics Offsetting project by Danone in Bali called into question
A plastic offsetting project backed by the food and drink giant Danone has been suspended, following allegations that a recycling facility was built illegally close to a Balinese community and without proper consultation, an Unearthed investigation has found. Danone’s project was set up as an attempt by the French multinational to offset its enormous plastic footprint in Indonesia, and part of its promise to recover more plastic than it uses in the country by 2025. (Greenpeace Unearthed)
25 April - Day 3
The IISD/ENB In the Corridors informal summary of Thursday's negotiation report:
On Thursday, delegates were preoccupied with seemingly simple provisions which may have monumental effects. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) operates in the spirit of the polluter-pays principle, in which a producer’s responsibility is extended to the post-consumer stage of a product’s life cycle. This means that responsibility for tackling pollution would begin upstream at the production stage and may involve incentives to encourage producers to sustainably design plastic products by eliminating harmful polymers. While EPR is a fundamental and ambitious strategy for addressing plastic pollution, the concept remains contentious among delegations at the INC, partly due to the interests of those plastic producers present in these negotiations. Some observers from civil society have drawn attention to the growing number of participants from the fossil fuel and chemicals industry at these negotiations. Much as this seems like a worrying trend, one seasoned participant noted that the practice of lobbying is not new in intergovernmental processes, raising the question: “aren’t government representatives from oil producing countries also lobbyists for their own national interests?”
Although EPR schemes are intended to hold producers accountable for the proliferation of plastics and go beyond downstream approaches to plastic waste clean-ups, some delegates have raised concerns about the risk of such schemes in exacerbating economic inequalities and food insecurity in developing countries, or being implemented in a manner that merely offloads the costs of sustainable product designs onto consumers. And yet, this does not mean that all countries must continue to depend on plastic for development. Some developing country delegations even volunteered to share their knowledge on non-plastic substitutes, which have been utilized by Indigenous Peoples and local communities for generations.
Some observers took it a step further, wondering why discussions on the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system have been absent in the negotiations thus far. This system gives the transnational private sector the power to bypass domestic legislation and sue governments for actions that could jeopardize industries’ bottom line. It remains to be seen if the elephants in the room will emerge in time to support a robust and effective plastics treaty.
25 April, 2024, CIEL - Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Outnumber National Delegations, Scientists, and Indigenous Peoples at Plastics Treaty Negotiations.196 fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists have registered for the conference, a 37% increase from the 143 lobbyists registered at INC-3.. (CIEL)