Subscribe
The fifth Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee session (INC-5) on ending plastic pollution through a global plastic treaty started on November 25. Here is a look at what happened in the runup to and on the first day of the meet. Also read the diary for November 26, November 27 and November 28.
Thousands marched in Busan on November 23 and November 24 in support of a strong plastics treaty. While November 23’s march was centred around the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center or BEXCO, November 24’s march proceeded along Haeundaehaebyeon-ro to Haeundae beach where a human sign was formed that read END PLASTIC.
Financiers met on November 23 at a World Economic Forum side event to imagine a circular economic future where plastic production increases, yet there is no pollution.
Business lobbyists and recycling admirers speculated about this opportunity at an Alliance to End Plastic Waste event on November 24. It will be “years” before the treaty establishes a finance mechanism, they said. In the interim, return-generating investments can be made.
More than 900 independent scientists from across the world signed a declaration calling on UN negotiators to “agree on a comprehensive and ambitious global plastics treaty based on robust scientific evidence to end plastic pollution by 2040.”
Canadian academic and author of Pollution is Colonialism, Max Liboiron called for a treaty that includes production caps and an end to public subsidies.
On November 24, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) head Inger Andersen, INC Chair Luis Vayas and UNEP Executive Secretary Jyoti Mathur-Filipp met with observers ahead of the start of INC-5.
To a packed auditorium, Andersen spoke of Vayas’ “big tent” and the need to “shuffle onto the bus.” She suggested that the treaty would not “sink to the lowest common denominator”, as “we are not here to negotiate a waste treaty.”
Despite the lofty rhetoric, Andersen and Vayas were grilled by civil society for nearly an hour. Andersen was asked whether she had pressured several country delegations to drop their demands on production reduction.
Andersen responded that she met with all member states and hearing out their concerns was part of her job and that delivering a treaty was her priority.
Member states went to the plenary on Day 1 of the INC-5. India took the floor to gain commitment from the chair that Rule 38 on voting during the fifth meeting will not be invoked. India’s intervention to ensure that all decisions will be made through consensus gathered support from all the like minded countries — mostly petro- and plastic-producing states.
While the Chairs’ plan was to start negotiating on the basis of the third version of the non-paper, member states like Russia, Saudi Arabia and others expressed dissatisfaction and accused the non-paper of not capturing the language that was discussed in the four previous meetings of the INC.
It was only after two plenary sessions and an entire day that the committee went into contact groups. It was decided that no more than two contact groups would meet at one time and that text from the compilation text could be recalled at any point of time during the negotiations.
Contact groups were accepting general statements and asking members states to give reflections on what they would like to do to the text- delete, add, change title etc.
With inputs from Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) and Global Strategic Communications Council (GSCC)