Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
THE fifth and putatively final round of the International Negotiating Committee (INC-5) meetings for a global plastics treaty will begin on Monday, Nov. 25, in South Korea. The mood ahead of the negotiations is best described as tense, as there is concern that the talks will not meet their goal of producing a draft treaty, given the slow progress so far and the rather unimpressive outcomes anticipated from the COP 29 climate summit, which will end just before the plastic treaty talks begin.
The agreement among most of the world's nations to begin work on a global, binding plastics treaty aimed at reducing plastic production and waste was hailed as a landmark when it was announced in 2022, but the work has gotten bogged down in conflicts over the details that have been no easier to resolve by having been anticipated ahead of time. The powerful lobby of the petrochemical industry and governments whose economies rely heavily on oil production have managed to water down most of the key points; for example, it emerged just this week that the US has withdrawn its support for language mandating plastic production caps, opting instead for a "flexible approach" of allowing voluntary national targets.
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