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This briefing note is aimed to inform BRC members, associates and partners of the latest developments about the UN Plastic Treaty.  

The BRC is not actively involved in the negotiations of the Treaty at the UN level, however we are closely monitoring progress and are connected on the matter with the UK Government (Defra) delegation who leads the talks. For any questions or queries, please get in touch with our policy lead Nadiya Catel-Arutyunova.

Background

Back in March 2022, 175 UN nations agreed to develop a legally binding agreement on plastic pollution by 2024. The UN resolution, titled “End Plastic Pollution: Towards an internationally legally binding instrument” was adopted after intense negotiations involving UN nations as well as a wide-ranging stakeholders from business, NGOs, charities and local communities' forums. Read more about what happened in Nairobi over here.  

An international legally binding treaty on plastics would be the most significant environmental multilateral deal since the Paris accord.  

The ambition is to end global plastic pollution by encompassing the full lifecycle of plastic, including its production, design and disposal. When adopted and ratified, the Treaty would impose specific obligations on UN nations to introduce domestic legislation to boost the update of reusable and recyclable plastics, including reduction targets for single-use plastic, and foster international collaboration across the plastics value chain. 

The process

The UN resolution established an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), which began work in 2022, with the ambition of completing a draft global legally binding agreement by the end of 2024.  

A series of INC meetings is now underway to negotiate the content of the treaty. The fourth of five planned INC sessions will take place in Ottawa, Canada, from 21st to 30th April 2024 (more about this here). If you’d like to know more about previous negotiations' sessions hosted in Uruguay, France and Kenya, click here.  

Where does the UK Government stand in relation to the UN Plastics Treaty? 

The UK is one of the leading nations supporting the development and progress of the treaty.  

The UK Government supports a combination of international obligations and national measures across the whole plastic lifecycle to ensure that the Treaty can adequately address the transboundary nature of plastic pollution.  

In a recent written ministerial statement, Defra Minister responsible for Marine Protection indicated that, during the third session of INC in November 2023, UK Government “pressed for provisions to restrain and reduce the production and consumption of plastic to sustainable levels; address plastic design; and increase the safe circularity of plastics in the economy, guided by the waste hierarchy. UK will support measures to manage plastic waste in an environmentally sound and safe manner and eliminate the release of plastics (including microplastics) to air, water and land.” 

UK is also one of the founding members of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution, a group of like-minded countries calling for an end to plastic pollution by 2040. Ahead of the third INC’s session in Nairobi, the UK Government co-signed a ministerial joint statement: 

  • Reaffirming commitment for an ambitious and effective treaty to protect human health and the environment from plastic pollution  
  • Reiterating the call for binding provisions in the treaty  
  • Restraining and reducing the consumption and production of primary plastic polymers to sustainable levels;  
  • Eliminating and restricting unnecessary, avoidable, or problematic plastics, as well as the plastic polymers, chemical constituents and plastic products that are of particular concern due to their adverse effects on the environment and human health; 
  • Increasing the safe circularity of plastics in the economy, guided by the waste hierarchy;  
  • Managing plastic waste in an environmentally sound and safe manner,  
  • and eliminating the release of plastics, including microplastics, to air, water and land. 

UK Government is invested in making sure that there are national Treaty Dialogues happening domestically, so that UK society has the opportunity to input into the process. Together with the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network (OPLN), they have been regularly convening an inclusive activist-to-industry multi stakeholder program addressing the plastics pollution crisis—in preparation for the UK’s involvement in negotiating a Global Plastic Pollution Treaty at the various INC sessions.  

Highlights from the Draft Zero Text of the international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment 

Ahead of the planned INC-3 session, the UNEP Secretariat was tasked with producing a Zero Draft of the Plastics Treaty to support discussions and negotiations happening in Nairobi, Kenya in November 2023. 

READ THE ZERO DRAFT UN PLASTICS TREATY

The draft states that UN nations should aim for a comprehensive “prevention, progressive reduction and elimination of plastic pollution throughout the lifecycle of plastic”. 

The Zero Draft does not include time-bound, numerical targets at this point, but these would be expected in future draft versions of the Treaty. 

The Zero Draft does 1) stipulate that harmful chemicals and the hardest-to-recycle plastics should be phased out more rapidly, and 2) allude to global bans on the highest-risk plastics and ‘short-lived’ plastics.  

It is stated that each UN nation should develop and implement a national plan  – similarly to the Paris Agreement on climate. Nations would be expected to report progress publicly and regularly and coordinate their national plans with neighbouring states. 

National plans would need to outline plans how at domestic level, each nations will: 

  • Phase out plastics phase-out plans 
  • Protect human health 
  • Update product design and performance requirements 
  • Introduce measures to scale up reuse and refill models 
  • Introduce measures to scale product and packaging recycling including extended producer responsibility (EPR) interventions 
  • Provide details on the management of waste plastic fishing gear 
  • Clean up existing plastic pollution

Highlights from the latest INC-3 session in November 2023

Various media outlets reported (Reuters, The Guardian, The Telegraph) that negotiations were underway with numerous UN nations focusing on specific and vested agendas to drive the trajectory of the Treaty “to focus on waste rather than production controls” (cf. Global Coalition for Plastics Sustainability led by Saudi Arabia and including countries like Russia, Iran, Cuba, China, and Bahrain) 

A good summary of the INC-3 session is available over here 

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation said there “was limited formal progress at INC-3 with no mandate for either a formal programme of intersessional work or for the development of the next version of the “zero draft” treaty text. They are also concerned by some calls to limit the scope of the treaty to downstream measures only.” 

The WWF  said that “negotiations came to an impasse in the final hours, as a handful of low-ambition countries stood in the way of meaningful progress”, WWF hopes that the next INC-4 round in Ottawa will witness substantial progress. 

Greenpeace also echoed frustration saying that “governments are allowing fossil fuel interests to drive the negotiations”.    

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