WWF’s response to INC-5.2 Chair’s new text: “This is not a treaty”

With numerous ministers and diplomats in attendance, the INC-5.2 Chair finally released a new draft of the global plastic pollution treaty. However, the text failed to live up to expectations that it would lead negotiations to a strong and ambitious treaty. 

Zaynab Sadan, Global Plastics Policy Lead & Head of Delegation for INC-5.2, WWF, said: “Let’s be clear, this is not a global treaty. This a collection of national and voluntary measures that will do nothing to address the worsening plastics crisis. After more than two and a half years of negotiations, this is the furthest we’ve been from finalising an effective treaty. 

At a bare minimum, the treaty must include binding global bans and phase outs of the most harmful products and chemicals of concern, product design requirements, a robust financial mechanism and aligned financial flows, as well as a mechanism to ensure the treaty can be strengthened over time through majority decision-making. Right now these essential elements are nowhere to be seen in the Chair’s text. This simply cannot stand. 

The ambitious majority of governments who have committed time and time again to a strong and effective treaty must immediately reject this text. The job of the Ministers here in Geneva now is to reinstate the ambition that has been stripped from the text to ensure the binding global measures and level of accountability they promised is properly reflected in the final text. 

Governments and the Chair of these negotiations cannot continue to play into the hands of low ambition states in pursuit of consensus at all costs. People and nature all around the world suffering the effects of plastic pollution cannot wait for consensus. Every compromise made in the room harms everyone and everything in and outside of it.”

Erin Simon, Vice President, Plastic Waste & Business, WWF, said: “With tomorrow’s deadline looming, the current draft of the text leaves the most important aspects of the treaty on the cutting room floor. Without a mandate for binding measures that reduce the harmful impacts chemicals and unnecessary plastics have on our ecosystems and on human health, we’ll be stuck in a continuous loop that perpetuates a future where this crisis continues to rage.

If bridges can’t be built, it’s going to require countries to find a backbone and deliver a treaty text that can fulfill the commitment the global community agreed to – the window is closing, time to get to work.”

ENDS

Notes

INC-5.2 will run from 5-14 August in Geneva, Switzerland. Should you require interviews, below is our list of spokespersons and their focus (those in bold will be available throughout INC-5.2):

• Kirsten Schuijt, Director General, WWF
• Efraim Gomez, Director, Global Policy Impact, WWF
• Zaynab Sadan, INC-5.2 Global Plastics Policy Lead & Head of Delegation, WWF
• Eirik Lindebjerg, Global Plastics Adviser, WWF
• Erin Simon, VP, Plastic Waste & Business, WWF
• John Duncan, No Plastic in Nature Initiative Lead, WWF 
• Florian Titze, Finance Expert, WWF
• Maria Alejandra Gonzalez, Senior Global Policy Advisor and Regional Coordinator, Latin America & Caribbean, WWF