GENEVA — The latest round of U.N. talks on a global plastics treaty ended in stalemate on Friday, with no draft text and no clear roadmap forward. The collapse, after nearly two weeks of negotiations, left delegates frustrated — but also, for many, relieved. By rejecting a watered-down agreement, negotiators kept alive the possibility of a treaty strong enough to end plastic pollution at its source.
The chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), Luis Vayas Valdivieso of Ecuador, presented two revised drafts in the final days. Neither won sufficient support to move forward. The session adjourned without setting a date for follow-up talks, the gavel’s final strike — fashioned from recycled plastic bottle tops — symbolizing both the stakes and the unfinished work.
The divide was stark: the High Ambition Coalition — including the EU, the U.K., many Latin American and African states, and numerous Pacific island nations — pushed for binding limits on virgin plastic production and restrictions on hazardous chemicals. Oil-producing states, led by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia, and Iran, resisted such measures, insisting the treaty focus on waste management and recycling instead.
Observers said procedural delays deepened frustrations. Reporting by SDG News confirms that in the final hours, many civil society voices were sidelined after an all-night scramble over text, with youth advocates among the few who addressed the plenary before adjournment.
Zaynab Sadan, Global Plastics Policy Lead and Head of Delegation for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), said the chair’s latest draft was “so compromised, so inconsequential it cannot hope to tackle the crisis in any meaningful way,” citing the absence of enforceable rules on bans, product design, and decision-making.
Scientists warn that without curbing the exponential growth of plastic production — most of it fossil-fuel-derived — and phasing down toxic additives, even the most ambitious recycling and waste management efforts will be outpaced. That tension defined the Geneva talks, with economic interests and environmental urgency pulling the process in opposite directions.
The geopolitical split sharpened as the week wore on. News outlets noted that the United States, under the Trump administration, opposed production caps and broad chemical restrictions, siding with other major producers and putting Washington at odds with the EU and a bloc of African and Pacific states demanding stronger controls.
In the closing stretch, Erin Simon, WWF’s Vice President and Head of Plastic Waste & Business, called the draft “another letdown,” pointing to “toothless” design standards and vague financing provisions.
Some delegations floated the idea of a “seventh round” of talks and described the current draft as a potential starting point. Others, especially among island nations, voiced anger at another missed opportunity. With the formal process now adrift, attention is turning to whether coalitions of ambitious countries might advance key elements of a treaty outside the INC framework.
For Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, Special Envoy for Climate Change for the Republic of Panama, the decision to walk away from Geneva without a deal was not an act of failure — but of political courage.
“Leaving Geneva without a treaty is not a failure,” he told SDG News. “The real failure would have been to accept a weak agreement that betrays science and future generations. We will return, and when we do, we will demand nothing less than a treaty strong enough to end the plastic crisis at its source.”
His message — shared by many in the High Ambition Coalition — reframed the week’s disappointment as an investment in the only kind of victory that matters: one rooted in science, enforceable commitments, and a genuine path to ending plastic pollution worldwide.
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