EIA expert urges against turning plastics treaty into framework agreement
Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) legal and policy expert Amy Youngman has urged countries that support an ambitious treaty against plastic pollution to reject an approach similar to the Paris climate agreement. In her view, the draft to be discussed in Bangkok in September could leave key decisions for the future instead of introducing common binding rules.
Youngman writes about this in a commentary for Climate Home News. The author believes that the Aid to Negotiations document prepared by the chair of the negotiations is increasingly resembling a framework convention: it provides for general commitments, nationally determined actions and reporting, while proposing that the most difficult issues be resolved later.
Negotiations on a global treaty
In March 2022, governments adopted by consensus UN Environment Assembly resolution 5/14, which launched negotiations on a legally binding international instrument to end plastic pollution. According to Youngman, during negotiations in Paris in 2023, and later in Ottawa, Busan and Geneva in 2024–2025, a small group of states opposed binding rules.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
The author also notes that the chair of the negotiations excluded observers from the rooms where the treaty’s fate is being decided. In her assessment, the new document is to form the basis of an informal meeting in Bangkok and effectively reproduces the text rejected in Geneva.
Dispute over binding standards
Youngman believes that a global problem requires global rules, since plastic production depends on international markets for oil, gas and chemical products, while goods and waste move between countries. She called the volumes of plastic production, the use of toxic chemicals, bans on single-use products and the procedure for adopting future decisions critical issues.
Youngman points out that the direct reference to “production and consumption” has been removed from the new text, while the reporting provisions borrow wording from the Paris Agreement. In her view, a model in which unlimited growth in production is attempted to be offset by waste management cannot solve the problem. The author urged states not to agree to a document that would be easier to adopt but would not contain sufficient mechanisms to combat plastic pollution.
