Weeklong negotiations for landmark treaty to end plastic pollution close, marred in disagreements

Negotiators at United Nations-led talks in Nairobi, Kenya have failed to agree on how to advance toward the development of a global treaty to end plastic pollution.

The latest round of negotiations to craft a treaty to end global plastic pollution closed late on Sunday after strained talks in Nairobi, Kenya, where delegates failed to reach a consensus on how to advance a draft of the treaty after a week of negotiations.

Environmental advocates criticized the outcome of the weeklong United Nations-led meeting on plastic pollution, saying oil-producing countries successfully employed stalling tactics designed to weaken the treaty.

Member states decided to move forward with a revision of the draft, which has become longer during this third round of negotiations and will be even more difficult to advance, participants said. States also failed to reach a consensus on intersessional work to discuss crucial parts of the draft to be done ahead of the fourth round of negotiations.

Tadesse Amera, co-chair of the International Pollutants Elimination Network, worried that lobbyists could “divert science from independent science to industry-based science” and “prevent the treaty from protecting human health in the environment.”

This week’s negotiations were the third of five rounds. The next talks will take place in Ottawa, Canada in April 2024. Delegates have until the end of 2024 to produce a final draft.

Read the full story from the Associated Press.