Key talks on plastic pollution deadlocked

GENEVA — Talks on forging a landmark treaty to combat the scourge of plastic pollution were stumbling on Saturday, with progress slow and countries at odds on how far the proposed agreement should go.

The negotiations, which opened on Tuesday, have four working days left to strike a legally binding instrument that would tackle the growing problem choking the environment.

In a midway assessment, talks chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso, an Ecuadoran diplomat, warned the 184 countries negotiating at the United Nations that they had to get shifting to get a deal.

"Progress made has not been sufficient," he told delegates. "A real push to achieve our common goal is needed."

Thursday is not just a deadline but "a date by which we must deliver", he added.

"Some articles still have unresolved issues and show little progress toward reaching a common understanding."

The key fracture is between countries that want to focus on waste management and others who want a more ambitious treaty that also cuts production and eliminates use of the most toxic chemicals.

And with the talks relying on finding consensus, it has become a game of brinkmanship.

A diplomatic source told reporters that many informal meetings had been scrambled together for Sunday's day off to try and break the deadlock.

"If nothing changes, we won't get there," the source added.

Countries have reconvened in Geneva after the failure of the supposedly fifth and final round of negotiations in South Korea last year.

After four days of talks, the draft text has ballooned from 22 to 35 pages, with the number of brackets in the text going up near fivefold to almost 1,500 as countries insert a blizzard of conflicting wishes and ideas.

"We need to accelerate," Vayas said. "We need a better rhythm in this and we need to also work in such a way that it will be clear that we will deliver by the end."

Bjorn Beeler, executive director at the International Pollutants Elimination Network, told AFP: "This whole process has not been able to take decisions and is still collecting ideas. We're sleepwalking toward a cliff and if we don't wake up, we're falling off."

Plastic pollution is so ubiquitous that microplastics have been found on the highest mountain peaks, in the deepest ocean trench and scattered throughout almost every part of the human body.

More than 400 million metric tons of plastic are produced globally each year, half of which is for single-use items.

Agencies Via Xinhua