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The US is facing increasing pressure from business leaders and environmentalists to push for tougher restrictions on plastics after Washington found itself on the same side as Russia and China in inconclusive UN talks on a global deal.
In the penultimate round of negotiations aimed at securing a deal similar to the Paris climate agreement by the end of the year, oil-producing countries failed to reach an agreement with an “ambitious” group that includes leading EU member states and Japan pushing for bold production limits.
The US, which is not part of the coalition of China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, warned against including production controls to reach an agreement.
The US State Department warned on Tuesday that “overly prescriptive approaches” in the treaty could deter “large producers or consumers of plastics” from joining the agreement.
“We recognize that downstream measures alone are not enough to end plastic pollution. Therefore, the US approach is focused on reducing demand for virgin plastic,” a State Department spokesperson told the Financial Times, citing the need to focus on recycling and reuse.
The U.S. position sparked a backlash from some observers at the Ottawa treaty negotiations, who warned that demand-focused measures would not be enough to reduce the 400 million tons of plastic waste produced annually.
Greenpeace delegation leader Graham Forbes said the US had failed to show leadership.
Until President Joe Biden “takes action in the global treaty to reduce plastic production, the plastics industry will continue to accelerate climate change and harm human health for short-term profits,” he said.
A retail executive said he was disappointed with the negotiations but added that the politics behind any deal were “incredibly challenging”.
An official at a nonprofit environmental group said the U.S. stance risks depriving the rest of the world of a tougher deal.
“[The US] Essentially, it’s about balancing the Biden administration’s political will to help solve the problem globally. . . with the recognition that it is very difficult to ratify a global agreement in Congress,” they said.
Over the weekend, several Democratic senators called on the Biden administration to reject the State Department’s “current self-imposed constraints” and join “ambitious nations seeking rigorous standards and accountability.”
According to the Washington-based Center for International Environmental Law, delegates also raised concerns about the increasing presence of fossil fuel lobbyists, who outnumber representatives of EU delegations.
The industry has invested heavily in recent years as demand for plastics, which use petrochemicals derived from fossil fuels as raw materials, is expected to nearly double by 2050. The International Energy Agency expects petrochemicals to be the “single largest contributor” to oil demand growth over the next five years.
Stewart Harris of the International Council of Chemical Associations, which represents the biggest plastics and petrochemical producers, told the FT that production restrictions would have “significant unintended consequences for those who can least afford it”.
Plastic production accounted for 5 percent of global emissions in 2019, a footprint expected to double by mid-century, according to a report this month from the University of California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. While alternative materials to plastic could worsen the emissions footprint, the report argued that eliminating the use of non-essential plastics could reduce emissions.
John Duncan, co-chair of the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, which includes more than 200 companies including Walmart and Unilever, said negotiators remained “fundamentally” apart at the end of U.N. talks that began last week . The coalition supports binding restrictions on plastic production.
“This [fossil fuel] “Companies and countries are being pushed into a corner, so to speak,” Duncan said, adding that producers “can’t afford for the deal to send the world down a different path because they’ve invested so much in a future with more plastic.” .” “.