UN aims to deliver draft plastics treaty by year’s end

UN aims to deliver draft plastics treaty by year’s end

Paris: The world should see the first draft of a highly anticipated and much needed international treaty to combat plastic pollution by the end of November, 175 nations gathered in Paris decided Monday after five days of gruelling talks.

The assembly’s negotiating committee called for the preparation of the “zero-draft” of a “legally binding instrument” ahead of a third round of talks in Nairobi, with the aim of finalising the treaty in 2024.

The decision emerged from an eleventh-hour meeting led by France and Brazil and was adopted by the full plenary at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters.

“Are there are no more interventions on this point?” asked Peru’s Gustavo Meza-Cuadra Velasquez, chair of the forum’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee.

“It is so decided,” he continued, as he brought down the gavel.

The breakthrough came after considerable “nit-picking” and “delaying tactics” by some countries, said France’s minister for ecological transition, Christophe Bechu.

Frustrations bubbled up during the first two days of the talks, which were devoted entirely to a debate over procedural rules, as large plastics producer nations — including fossil fuel supplier Saudi Arabia, as well as China and India — resisted the idea the deal could be decided by a vote rather than by consensus.

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