Early in December, more than 200 countries gathered in Busan, South Korea to finalize a way to curb global plastic pollution. After two years of discussions, the meeting in Busan was pivotal to getting a plan in place, but Saudi Arabia and Russia blocked the agreement, and the delegates left without curbing plastic production.

It was the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) and that aimed to finalize the treaty, which would have limited plastic production and added chemical regulations by the end of 2024. Significant disagreements and a massive influx of big oil lobbyists and interests led to a deadlock, pushing discussions out to sometime in 2025, with no firm dates.

It’s a significant blow to climate change efforts, as plastic pollution is skyrocketing. A study from September noted that the globe creates more than 57 million tons of plastic pollution each year. That number is expected to skyrocket by 2040 when the world will produce an estimated 637 million tons of plastic per year, a 60% jump over current levels. Here's what happened and why the agreement broke down.

The Treaty

In 2022, the world's nations agreed that a global treaty was needed to tackle the issue of plastic pollution, with a particular focus on the impacts on the marine environment. Originally, the delegates determined that the treaty should be completed within two years because of the urgency of the issue. The proposed Global Plastics Treaty, which was under negotiation and backed by the United Nations, aimed to address the escalating crisis of plastic pollution through a legally binding international framework.

Delegates wanted to achieve various goals that included a cap on global plastic production, phasing out single-use plastics (think things like plastic forks and knives), regulating the use of hazardous chemicals in plastics production, improving recycling and reuse programs around the globe and offering technical and financial support for developing countries to help reduce plastic waste and pollution.

The negotiations took place over two years, and at the end of the day, countries could not agree to a final treaty. Russia and Saudi Arabia, two of the largest oil producers (among other oil-producing nations) scuttled the deal.

The Link Between Big Oil and Plastics

Oil and plastic are linked in a number of ways. First, oil is a key component of plastic production, and according to the United Nations, more than 98% of single-use plastic is produced from petrochemicals made from oil and gas.

The feedstocks, or the raw materials used to create plastics, come from the refining of crude oil and natural gas. Big oil has long pinned its hopes for growth on the increasing demand for plastics around the world, and the world’s top seven producers of plastic are large oil firms, including ExxonMobil and Sinotec. Plastic manufacturing currently accounts for around 12% of the oil consumption around the world.

Why Did the Deal Fail?

The treaty failed for a number of reasons, but the main reason was that big oil countries, like Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, Iran, and Kuwait, opposed changing the voting process to ratify the treaty. According to PBS, the treaty requires that proposals win a unanimous vote to make it into the treaty. For this particular treaty, some of the member countries wanted to change the process to a majority vote so that the deal wouldn't fall apart, but oil-rich countries opposed the change. The process ended up being paralyzed as a result. It didn't help that oil lobbyists outnumbered the host delegation by more than 30%.

Additionally, Saudi Arabia and Russia opposed the deal because they said that negotiations around caps on global plastic production and curbs on the hazardous chemicals used in plastic production fell outside the deal's scope, arguing that the focus should be on recycling and improved plastic collection instead. The Russian delegates argued that the curbs on plastic production were economically motivated.

African nations like Ghana, which have struggled with severe plastic pollution, decided that the final treaty had been so watered down that they would rather leave the treaty unfinished than leave with a less effective solution.

“We want a treaty that will be able to solve it,” Sam Adu-Kumi, Ghana’s lead negotiator, told PBS in an interview. “Otherwise we will go without it and come and fight another time.”

Why Plastics Matter: The Wider Implications

Plastics are a pillar of our modern world. They’re found in everything from food packaging to car bumpers and so widely used that plastics have even begun to be found in our bodies, rock formations, even the air we breathe. Thanks to tremendous plastic pollution and global use, plastics are literally everywhere.

The world is more than half a century on from Dustin Hoffman’s famous scene in the The Graduate, in which his neighbor pitches him on a future career with in one word: "Plastics." That line has proven to be prophetic. Since the 1950s, plastics have played a major role in the global economy, trade, and more. In fact, according to UN estimates, more than eight billion tons of plastic have been produced globally, while less than 10% has been recycled.

The production of plastic releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and oil companies have been looking for a way to offset weaker demand for their goods and materials as the EV transition takes hold. When plastics are inevitably discarded, they break down into smaller and smaller particles, which are increasingly penetrating human and ecological systems and wreaking havoc on the environment.

According to Bloomberg, “Plastic was responsible for 1.8 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. That’s 3.4% of the global total, more than the percentage of CO2 contributed by the aviation sector or emissions from all the rice grown worldwide. And plastic’s share is set to increase in coming years. Researchers project that the emissions from plastic will exceed 2.5 billion metric tons by 2050 if the current pace of growth and manner of production continue.”

Just days after the treaty fell apart, Coca-Cola, the largest known (branded) plastic polluter, announced that it revised its climate goals and moved away from its former plastic and pollution goals. Rather than reducing its use of virgin and single-use plastic, the company says it will focus on the use of recycled materials in its bottling. By 2035, the company aims to increase the use of recycled plastic in packaging to 30 to 35 percent and "help ensure the collection of 70 to 75 percent of the equivalent number of bottles and cans introduced into the market annually." That's a significant shift from its original plans to reduce the "use of virgin plastic derived from non-renewable sources by a cumulative 3 million metric tons from 2020 to 2025," and package 25 percent of its drinks in refillable or returnable packaging by 2030.

While there’s no hard date for the UN to resume negotiations on the plastic treaty, discussions are tentatively planned for sometime in 2025.

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