The fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4), aimed at forging a comprehensive global agreement to mitigate plastic pollution, ended after a week of extensive deliberations. Delegates addressed one of the most critical aspects of their discussions at the tail end of the meeting: the scope and nature of intersessional work, which notably excluded deliberations on primary plastic polymers.
Throughout the week-long meeting, countries committed to advancing intersessional work across several key areas. These include exploring financial mechanisms and tackling issues surrounding plastic products, hazardous chemicals in these products, product design, and enhancing reusability and recyclability standards. The assembly agreed to allow observer participation in these sessions and established a legal drafting group tasked with reviewing the treaty text and furnishing recommendations to the plenary.
One significant development has been the conscious decision to omit “upstream measures” from intersessional discussions, referring to the reduction of extraction or production of plastics. Brett Nadrich, the US & Canada Communications Officer for the #BreakFreeFromPlastic movement, expressed concerns about this decision. “The decision to exclude upstream measures from the intersessional work means it will be more daunting to include extraction or production reduction measures under the ambit of the draft plastics treaty,” Nadrich explained. “This compromise diminishes the ambition of this process as it ignores the central role of plastics production in fueling the climate, biodiversity, and pollution crises. This is not only an utter disappointment but also a missed opportunity to tackle the root causes comprehensively.”
The Ottawa negotiations illuminated the differing stances of various nations. Perú and Rwanda emerged as proactive proponents, presenting a bold proposal targeting a 40% reduction in the global use of primary plastic polymers by 2040 from 2025 levels. This proposal garnered robust support from several delegations, including Malawi, the Philippines, and Fiji. Following this, multiple countries endorsed the Bridge to Busan Declaration on Plastic Polymers, which seeks to sustain momentum for this provision in the treaty text as negotiations move towards their fifth and final scheduled session in Busan, Republic of Korea, in November 2024.
Conversely, a contingent of countries with substantial interests in the polymer and plastics industries, including Saudi Arabia, India, Kuwait, and Qatar, attempted to reopen discussions to potentially narrow the treaty’s scope, focusing it more on waste management rather than the entire lifecycle of plastics.
Despite progress in streamlining the draft treaty, challenges remain, as outlined by Von Hernandez, Global Coordinator for #BreakFreeFromPlastic. “Although there was progress on substantial negotiations in Ottawa, countries are walking away with a text that is not yet fit for final negotiations in Busan. While there has been some streamlining of the draft, there have also been more additions than deletions, leading to a text riddled with a large number of options and bracketed words and sentences,” Hernandez stated, highlighting the contentious nature of the discussions. “A small number of countries continued their obstructionist and low-ambition tactics—watering down, adding countless brackets, and shamelessly twisting the language across the different provisions in an attempt to narrow the scope and lower the ambitions of the treaty.”
As the delegates look forward to the next round of talks in Busan, the influence of the fossil fuel and chemical industries remains a pivotal factor, evidenced by the almost 200 industry lobbyists registered to attend the negotiations.
Christopher Chin, the Founder and Executive Director of COARE came away with this view of the week’s meeting, “Thousands of Country delegates, scientists, NGO representatives, and First Nation rightsholders traveled to Ottawa, Canada to continue negotiating a treaty to end plastic pollution. However, instead of good-faith engagement and progress, they were met with obstruction and delay tactics by industry-inspired interests and a small handful of Countries with no interest in protecting human or environmental health. While the rest of the world literally suffers from the affront of the lifecycle of plastic, these parties shamelessly and knowingly prevent any meaningful development.”
