Plastic, but certainly not fantastic
Mark Lumsdon-Taylor · Posted on: October 30th 2025 · read
A UK farmer once said, ‘it’s hard to be green when you’re in the red.” It goes without saying that farming is a complex and heavily discussed subject, although it is not the subject under scrutiny today. Nevertheless, that statement is no less true of countries and economies than it is of farmers.
There is increased evidence of territories electing to prioritise staying out of the red, at the cost of going green. For some, particularly low-lying countries, their future is all but sealed. For other countries, particularly those that feel they hold a certain degree of resilience against climate change, their focus has shifted markedly towards prioritising the red issues over the green.
The most prominent example is the United States under the Trump administration. During president Trump’s tenure, vast swathes of climate change policy have been rolled back, and who can forget President Trump’s famous (or infamous) cry to ‘drill, baby drill’ – a call for expansion of climate-harming oil and gas drilling.
The US is not an isolated incident. For economic reasons we have seen the EU easing some of its important climate change regulations, whether that is due to pressure from, for example, farmers and carmakers, or whether it is to simplify GHG reporting and administration. The result is the same. ‘Green’ has been pushed back by other considerations.
A promising start on the Global Plastic Treaty
"The most recent example is the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) and its efforts concerning plastic pollution. In March 2022, the UN Environmental Assembly convened in Nairobi, Kenya where 175 nations voted to adopt a global treaty for plastic pollution. The nations agreed on an accelerated timeline in order that the treaty could be implemented as early as 2025. We are now in 2025, and the latest news from INC 5.2 in Geneva, Switzerland is that the latest draft of the treaty has been roundly rejected by many of the nation states involved."
The Plastic Problem
Whilst plastic is an essential part of our daily lives, there is overwhelming weight of evidence that demonstrates plastic is polluting our planet and chronically damaging wildlife and natural habitats, particularly within the marine environment where plastic waste breaks down into micro-particles ingested by marine life. This also, incidentally, means plastics are present in the human food chain.
Every year, the world produces around 462 million tonnes of plastic according to the WWF (World Wildlife Fund), which also highlights that 90% of that plastic pollutes our planet.
Particular culprits are single-use plastics such as cutlery, packaging and microplastics which break off larger plastics such as textiles. It is currently estimated that 9 million to 14 million tons of plastic waste ends in the world’s oceans each year, with little significant effort to stem that flow or mitigate its impacts.
Plastic has been found in all areas of the globe, from deep seas to remote mountains, where it causes major harm to wildlife and ecosystems. In addition, it poses significant risk to human health and the world economy. At the current rate, according to WWF, global plastic pollution could triple by 2040 unless immediate action is taken.
Dealing with plastic pollution
The solution, through the INC negotiations, should be a new set of legally binding and equitable global agreements that define the tangible steps necessary to change the way plastics are produced and consumed. This should prioritise:
- The phasing out of unnecessary plastic products that pose a high pollution risk, including single-use items and plastic packaging. In contradiction, President Trump famously introduced Executive Order 14208, on 10th February 2025, rescinding ex-president Biden’s phasing out of single-use plastic by the federal government and ‘ending procurement and forced use of paper straws’.
- The establishment of binding design requirements for plastic products that lead to reduced plastic consumption, and reduced waste from plastic products.
- Aligning these measures to robust transition mechanisms including both technical and financial assistance for transition.
Why did we enter 2025 with no global treaty on plastic waste in place?
What are the barriers?
Quite simply, a number of nation-economies are driven by the production of oil that, in some measure, is used in the plastic production and consumption industry.
At INC-5.2, the Colombian delegation claimed the draft text was entirely unacceptable because it was unbalanced and lacked the ambition and global obligations needed to end plastic pollution. The head of Panama’s delegation, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, stood and cheered the Colombian position. Many more delegations agreed, including Mexico, Chile, Ghana, Canada, Norway, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the group of small island developing states. Oil and gas producing nations raised other concerns, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar claiming the draft lacks the scope necessary to set the parameters of the treaty or precise definitions.
The United States determined that six articles crossed red lines, but failed to elaborate as to why. Only the Indian delegation proclaimed the draft to be a ‘good enough starting point’.
Missing from the draft treaty was any mention of chemicals, and it mentioned plastics only once in the preamble, reaffirming the importance of promoting sustainable production and consumption of plastics. It is not perhaps surprising that, given the scale of the issue, this draft might be considered weak.
David Axoulay, Head of the delegation for the Centre for International Environmental Law, was forthright, claiming the text ‘makes a mockery of a three-year-long consultative process’, further stating ‘this is a treaty that all but ensures that nothing will change. It gives in to petrostate and industry demands with weak, voluntary measures that guarantee we continue to produce plastic at increasing levels indefinitely, fail to safeguard human health, endanger the environment, and damn future generations’.
The biggest barrier to progressing the treaty has been whether it should impose caps on producing new plastic, or focus instead on things such as better design, recycling and reuse.
Approximately 100 countries want to limit production as well as tackling clean-up and recycling, and many nations have claimed it is essential to address toxic chemicals.
However, oil and gas producing nations, together with the plastics industry, oppose production limits, and would prefer to focus on better waste management and reuse, leading to the three-year impasse.
What next?
"All the evidence demonstrates that plastic pollution is seriously damaging the environment and wildlife and entering the human food chain, resulting in human health issues."
"Despite this, Zaynab Sadan, Global Plastics Policy Lead and Head of Delegation for WWF, is assertive: ‘Let’s be clear, this is not a global treaty. This [is] a collection of national and voluntary measures that will do nothing to address the worsening plastics crisis’."
The treaty draft omits binding bans on harmful products and chemicals, enforceable design standards, robust financing mechanisms, and majority-based decision-making to strengthen the treaty over time.
Conclusion
Based on scientific evidence, the Treaty is essential and needs to be robust if it is to meet the requirements of the enormous task it needs to deal with.
Despite its critically essential nature, and three years of negotiations, we are no further forward in finalising this vital treaty. Perhaps, it’s hard to be green when economic considerations are at stake.
As climate policy shifts, staying up to date is of paramount importance. If you’d like to get a better understanding or further insights into how climate policy changes could impact your business, get in touch with our team.
