Talks aimed at striking a landmark treaty on tackling the scourge of plastic pollution ended Friday with no consensus on a last-ditch proposal aimed at breaking the deadlock.
“We will not have a treaty to end plastic pollution here in Geneva,” Norway’s negotiator said as country representatives took the floor following talks that went through the night.
India and Uruguay said no consensus had been reached on the proposal, with Cuba adding: “We have missed a historic opportunity.”
Talks on striking a global treaty on combating plastic pollution were extended an extra day into Friday but with no clear endgame in sight.
Ten days of negotiations at the United Nations in Geneva were due to wrap up on Thursday but with 23 minutes of the day left, the talks were prolonged.
However, after a day of frantic negotiations, there were few signs that rival country blocs were any closer to bridging their differences and striking a text on dealing with the scourge of plastic that pollutes land, oceans and people’s bodies.
“As consultations of my revised draft text are still ongoing, this plenary is therefore adjourned, to be convened on August 15, 2025, at a time to be announced,” talks chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso said before gavelling the session closed.
The plenary session — bringing all 185 negotiating countries together in the UN Palais des Nations’ main assembly hall — lasted less than a minute, with shocked reactions among the delegates packing the room.
“It’s such a mess. I’ve never seen that. The room is full of people standing, trying to understand what’s going on,” Aleksandar Rankovic from The Common Initiative think-tank, told AFP.
“It smells like no deal.
“The room is very discontented,” he said, but “even if people don’t believe that a deal is achievable this time, they also might want to be pushing the text in their direction up to the very last minute”.
Plastic taking over the beaches, drainages...