Why it's important. Plastics Treaty: Discussions stalled, ministers expected this Monday

"The Mediterranean is one of the most polluted seas in the world, particularly in terms of microplastics," said Noam Yaron before setting off on Monday to swim from Calvi to Monaco, without leaving the water . Today, 22 million tonnes of plastic waste are released into the environment, and the OECD estimates that if no action is taken, this production will triple by 2060.

To stem this phenomenon, 184 countries have been meeting in Geneva since August 5 to try to develop the first global treaty against plastic pollution. Time is running out. Negotiations began more than three years ago, and the last round of discussions in Busan, South Korea, at the end of 2024 ended in failure.

But halfway through this phase of negotiations, it seems the discussions are heading in the same direction. "Many questions remain unanswered," notes Luis Vayas Valdivieso, Ecuador's ambassador to Great Britain, who is chairing these negotiations. "We have now reached a crucial stage; the negotiations need real progress to be made in order to conclude within the given timeframe."

The ambassador believes that the progress made in Switzerland "is not sufficient." As evidence, the discussions resulted in a text of 35 pages instead of the initial 22, and the number of topics on which no agreement was reached has ballooned to nearly 1,500, compared to 371 in the initial version of the text.

The drafting of this treaty, which would regulate the global level of production, consumption, and end-of-life of plastic, is therefore not yet close to seeing the light of day, particularly because of the oil-producing countries. They do not want a fixed rate of pollution reduction to be set. Furthermore, the United States is quibble over the vocabulary used and refuses to include the term "over the entire lifespan of the plastic" in the final text.

Conversely, the 27 countries of the European Union, as well as several African and Latin American countries, are demanding that the text include a production reduction target. These disparities risk leading to a failure of the negotiations, which would constitute a real catastrophe for the planet.

But the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Inger Andersen, remains optimistic ahead of the congress's end on Thursday: "We have a chance of leaving Geneva with this treaty." Time is on their side, as several environment ministers are arriving in Switzerland this Monday and could tip the balance.