2023-06-02 20:56:32
” There’s no time to lose “recalled Emmanuel Macron at the opening of the negotiations organized in Paris from May 29 to June 2 to put an end to plastic pollution, described as ” time bomb “ by the head of state. More than 350 million tons of plastic waste are generated worldwide each year and threaten ecosystems, health and the climate. The timetable is tight: the international community has given itself until the end of 2024 to reach a legally binding global treaty.
After five days of tough negotiations between a thousand delegates from 175 countries, the predominant feeling is nevertheless that of having “wasted time” to snatch an agreement in extremis that does not jeopardize the continuation of the treaty-making process. At the end of the last plenary session, Friday June 2, at Unesco, the States gave the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee a mandate to prepare a « zero draft »include a first draft text, before the next negotiating session, scheduled for November in Kenya.
But tensions and resistance have been strong. “We had a difficult start to the week with a lot of nit-picking and somewhat dilatory maneuvers on points of procedure which led to us getting into serious things late”, commented Christophe Béchu. The French Minister for Ecological Transition had presented the Parisian sequence as a step “crucial”. It almost became fatal.
Two days of blockage
“We avoided the worst”, admits a European negotiator. The first two days of talks bogged down over procedural issues. Led by Saudi Arabia, several Gulf countries joined by Russia, Iran, China, India and even Brazil refuse that the future treaty be approved by a vote – by a two-thirds majority – if no consensus is not found. A principle however validated during the first session of negotiations, at the end of November in Uruguay.
“The question on the vote had the merit of removing the masks very earlyanalyzes David Azoulay, an informed observer of diplomatic jousting within the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), it is supported by oil and gas states and plastics producers who know that if the treaty goes through, it will not be good for their business. That’s why they tried to derail it before it was launched but they couldn’t. »
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