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Once Again, Oil States Thwart Agreement on Plastics

Diplomats from around the world concluded nine days of talks in Geneva — plus a marathon overnight session that lasted into the early hours of Friday — with no agreement on a global plastics treaty. During a closing plenary that started on Friday at 6:30 a.m.

During a closing plenary that started on Friday at 6:30 a.m. — more than 15 hours after it was originally scheduled to begin — nearly all countries opposed an updated draft of the U.N. treaty that was put forward by the negotiating committee chair, the Ecuadorian diplomat Luis Vayas Valdivieso. Instead of whittling down a draft of the treaty that had been prepared late last year during the previous meeting in Busan, South Korea, delegates added hundreds of suggestions to it, placing a deal further from reach. Over the course of the Geneva talks, delegates rejected two new drafts of the treaty prepared by Valdivieso: one released on Wednesday, which was so objectionable that countries said it was “ repulsive ” and lacked “any demonstrable value;” and the most recent one published just hours before Friday’s 6:30 a.m. plenary.

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