This story will be updated as negotiations in Ottawa conclude.
With Monday’s wrap of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC-4), international negotiators—and an army of industry lobbyists—moved closer to an agreement for tackling plastics pollution, to one degree or another.
For Canada, which currently subsidizes plastic production and exports millions of kilograms of plastic waste each month, an effective treaty could reshape supply chains for plastic products and packaging, and for processes and chemicals used for making plastic, Karen Wirsig, senior program manager for plastics at Environmental Defence Canada, told The Energy Mix.
“I think if we’re all rowing in the same direction on plastic, it is much more likely that we will see shifts to more sustainable practices,” Wirsig said.
“A global treaty that sets some parameters around all of this stuff will affect Canada,” she added. “It will mean we will make and use less plastic, and that will be good for our health and our environment—and it will be really a pressure point to shift to more sustainable practices.”
The three preceding rounds of negotiations began with a March, 2022 mandate endorsed by 175 nations to develop a legally binding treaty on plastics pollution by the end of 2024. INC-4 aims to advance an existing treaty text that was developed during the third round of talks in Kenya last fall, so that it can be finalized at the last meeting, to be held towards the end of this year in Busan, South Korea.
But taking that step will also depend on determining the treaty’s scope, a current point of controversy as countries disagree about whether it should include limits on plastic production or only address consumption.
At the start of the week’s negotiations, Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced a national registry for tracking plastic production and pollution as a first step for acting on the country’s plastics pollution. And while Canada is considered a ”high ambition” country—along with 64 others—for pushing for a legally binding treaty, Wirsig says there has been a lot of “waffling” this week from Guilbeault, in contrast to the “much more clear and unambiguous and straightforward approach on an ambitious global plastics treaty” that was expected from Canada.
Guilbeault has indicated that a cap on production may be too complicated for a global treaty. He has said Canada is “not opposed to the concept of a production cut,” but also questioned whether it is feasible to enforce a “plastic cap” globally and has pointed to other options like single-use plastic bans and standards requiring minimum amounts of recycled content in new plastics, reports City News.
“I’m just not sure how we would do it,” Guilbeault said. “And I think there are other ways of achieving a goal like that without going through what could be a very difficult and not too constructive process.”
Meanwhile, plastic producing countries like China and Saudi Arabia are pushing to limit the treaty’s scope. There is also a strong presence of nearly 200 fossil fuel and plastic lobbyists at INC-4 trying to steer the final text to be favourable for the industry. For example, Stewart Harris spoke on behalf of the International Council of Chemical Associations to call for a treaty that focuses on “circularity,” or recycling plastic and reuse.
“We want to see the treaty completed,” Harris said. “We want to work with the governments on implementing it. The private sector has a role to play.”
Wirsig, who was present at the event, told The Energy Mix the strong showing of lobbyists was affecting negotiations as the petrochemical industry is “fighting for its life.”
“There’s lobbyists on country delegations, there’s lobbyists in the room all the time, there are lobbyists meeting with all kinds of delegations,” she said. “It really is a zero sum game here, and unfortunately [the petrochemical lobby] has way too much power in this kind of forum and generally in public policy around the world.”
One conference observer told The Mix that an industry representative tried to tell them that plastics carry no health or environmental impact.
Canadian environmental organizations like Environmental Defence are also present and trying to move negotiations towards an ambitious outcome that is legally binding, non-voluntary, and maintains limits on production. They are joined by activists from around the world who are advocating on behalf of communities that have been affected by plastic pollution.
Among them is Aeshnina Azzahr, an activist from Indonesia, who called on Canada to stop sending its plastic waste abroad to be dumped in countries in the Global South. Also present are Louisiana and Texas residents from communities near petrochemical facilities that are causing air and water pollution, and members of an Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus who say microplastics and pollution are contaminating their food supplies and threatening their ways of life, reports the Associated Press.
Though a final treaty is expected in November, whether it effectively addresses plastic pollution will depend on the measures it includes and how much is compromised.
“The lowest common denominator right here is a treaty that is totally voluntary, one that deals with waste management, basically,” Wirsig said.
“That is not a treaty that is going to stop plastic pollution worldwide, or even protect the climate from the warming impacts of plastics. And it certainly won’t protect public health, both at the production and receiving ends of plastic waste.”
