Oil, gas and polymer producing countries were successful in severely delaying discussions on substance
Member states huddle for a 15-minute consultation. Photo: Siddharth G Singh / CSE
A group of countries with economic interests in increased and unsustainable production of polymers/plastic caused talks on the second day of the ongoing Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-2) meet to be distracted and delayed from reaching any sort of consensus.
The INC-2 was scheduled to start discussing matters of substance like core obligations and implementation measures in the contact groups. However, the entire day was lost to discussing rules of procedure.
The group, referred to informally as the ‘no ambition coalition’ (NAC) by critics at the meet, kept taking turns on May 30 to point to Rule 37 and Rule 38.1 of the draft rules of procedure.
These rules talk about how decisions will be reached and who will take them.
The NAC kept insisting on having a consensus-based agreement. It also insisted on bracketing Rule 38.1 which had been agreed by the INC-1 in Uruguay last year.
A part of Rule 37 has already been bracketed in INC-1 after India’s only intervention at the Punta del Este meet. In INC-2, India insisted that Rule 38.1 should be bracketed (sometimes asking to bracket the entire Rule 38). Without this, the NAC was not ready to move on to the next agenda in the negotiations.
Several point of order (objections) and clear interventions by the NAC caused a delay for the delegates to move ahead to the next agenda.
On the basis of a proposal made by the INC chair — which was quickly grabbed by Saudi Arabia — an open ended working group (OEWG) was formed to discuss the way forward.
The OEWG invited inputs from members states who could suggest how Rule 38.1 could be adopted by the committee. The OEWG then came back and delegations from Japan and Uruguay informed the chair that the group had come up with seven options for Rule 38.1.
This led to the second half of the already delayed plenary to start at 4:30 pm local time, instead of 3 pm. All seven options will be posted on the United Nations Environment Programme website.
Late in the afternoon, a suggestion by the chair to convene a 15-minute consultation was grabbed by Brazil to specifically address Rules 37 and 38.1.
This resulted in a 1.5-hour huddle created by member states in the plenary room that was not open to civil society organisations or major groups and stakeholders.
It was suggested by the chair that the evening should be spent by member states in having informal consultations and arriving at an agreement which will be discussed in the plenary on day 3 of the INC-2.
After a four-hour-long informal discussion which continued till 01:00 AM in the morning of May 31, it was decided that Rule 38.1 will be put under brackets and even if the committee does not agree to an agenda by consensus, there cannot be any voting under any circumstances.
However, the bracketed text, may, at a later point be brought up by any member state and opened for discussion. This indicates that the dilution of the tentative treaty by the NAC has already started.
The contact groups, which were supposed to start discussing substances on day 2 of INC, have not been able to start it even on the third day.
The member states are still making statements about the elements of the treaty and may go into contact group discussions late evening on day 3 of the INC-2.
The proceedings so far have all the elements to predict that INC-2 may not be able to come up with a zero-draft of the legally binding instrument till Friday, June 2, 2023 and things may get inordinately delayed.
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