I ended my last Post – “Can we foresee Middle Power Action in a World of Geopolitical Tensions?” indicating I wanted to examine further Middle Powers (MP) and Middle Power Diplomacy (MPD.) I think it is very important, in the current global disorder with Trump 2.0, to explore further, MP and MPD. It is valuable to dig further into the remarks expressed by Gareth Evans, Australia’s former foreign minister at a CWD session. We were fortunate enough to have him join CWD as a discussant in that webinar gathering on Australia and New Zealand as MPs. He subsequently provided us with a written set of his remarks from the session and then later on he was good enough to provide remarks he delivered to a course at the Australian War College in Canberra last June.
But before tackling MPs again, I had to turn my focus on the ‘impending’ Plastics Treaty and to take the measure of the state of multilateralism by focusing on this negotiation. The several delegate gatherings reflect the current difficulties of multilateral negotiation and more importantly reaching multilateral agreement – moving the yardsticks on critical global governance issues.
As pointed out by Madeleine Speed at FT:
T“Delegates from more than 170 countries have gathered in Switzerland over the past two weeks in a final attempt to reach a globally binding treaty. The fifth round of talks collapsed in South Korea last year after oil-producing nations blocked the inclusion of measures that would regulate plastic production.”
“The Geneva talks scheduled to conclude on Thursday [August14th] were extended into another day for the presentation of a second draft of the treaty. But a heated final plenary meeting on Friday morning appeared set to end without agreement.”
This is of course a failure after a previous failure in Busan South Korea to conclude a Plastics Treaty. Negotiations to conclude a Plastics Treaty has been ongoing since 2022.
In fact just a few hours later Hiroko Tabuchi, who covers pollution and the environment for the NYTimes wrote:
“Negotiations over a global plastic pollution treaty collapsed on Friday [August 15th] as countries failed to bridge wide gaps on whether the world should limit plastic manufacturing and restrict the use of harmful plastic chemicals.”
“Environmental groups accused a small number of petroleum-producing nations, which make the building blocks of plastic, of derailing an ambitious effort to tackle plastic waste. “We are leaving frustrated,” Edwin Josué Castellanos López, chief negotiator for Guatemala, told the delegates. “We have not come up with a treaty that the planet so urgently needs.””
And Madeleine Speed at the FT appeared to confirm the immediate Treaty failure:
While the majority of more than 170 countries were prepared to compromise to secure a treaty in Geneva on Friday, the US refused to agree to anything beyond voluntary measures, national delegates told the Financial Times. This followed the long-running opposition of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and a number of other petrostates which would not budge from their refusal to agree measures that address the production of plastic, rather than only waste management.
So where to from here, and why are we seeing yet again multilateral negotiating failure. On what’s next Tabuchi wrote:
“It was unclear what next steps might follow the latest round of negotiations in Geneva which were supposed to be the last. Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, which is hosting the talks, said countries needed time to regroup after failing to reach consensus over draft treaty texts.”
And why the difficulty. The problem is the goal set by those seeking a binding treaty in the face of oil producers. Looking forward the continued production and use of plastics leads here according to the OECD:
“The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that, without global action to curb plastic pollution, plastic production will grow by 70 percent between 2020 and 2040, totaling 736 million tons a year by the end of that period. Overall as of 2020, less than 10 percent of global plastic waste was estimated to have been recycled, with the rest disposed of in landfills, incinerated or released into the environment.”
There is dramatic tension between those focused only on recycling, notwithstanding the poor track record for recycling and those determined to place a cap on plastic production and dealing with plastic toxicity:
“A coalition of nations had aimed not only to improve recycling and clean up the world’s plastic waste, but also to curb plastics production. That would put measures like a ban on single-use plastics, a major driver of waste, on the table, some said at the time.”
“A group of nations also pushed for the treaty to include controls on toxic chemicals in plastic products.”
In addition to those determined to tackle the toxic chemicals in plastics there are those slow walking efforts to place a cap on production especially Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and other oil producing states. Now that group has been augmented by a number of others:
“The United States, which supported the idea of a broad treaty under the Biden administration, has now turned against production caps, proposing in the most recent round to strike a mention addressing “the full life cycle of plastics” from the treaty.”
Trump 2.0 now joins Russia and China in opposing limits on production.
Clearly, part of the dilemma faced by delegates seeking a binding treaty here is the determination of the negotiating group to use a rule of agreement that limits the group’s ability to move forward:
“The talks’ collapse “proved that there’s no way we can proceed with consensus,” said Bjorn Beeler, executive director at IPEN, an international network of nonprofits focused on addressing pollution. “The result was the chaos you saw.””
As pointed out by Tabuchi in an earlier NYTimes piece:
“On Thursday, delegates continued to demand a new draft, even as they contemplated various outcomes: a weak treaty, a continuation of talks or no treaty at all. Getting all of the world’s nations to agree using U.N.-sanctioned consensus-based negotiations seems increasingly out of reach.”
Rather than employing a majority decision rule the negotiation faces consensus agreement. And it appears the results are all too obvious. It is evident that majority of nations favor a production cap and dealing with toxic chemicals as well as recycling management:
“But the majority of nations at the talks have supported curbs on plastic production, saying the plastic waste problem needs to be addressed at the source.” …
“And at the treaty talks, more than 80 countries had signed onto a proposal led by Switzerland and Mexico to include controls on toxic chemicals in plastic products.”
As pointed out in Al Jazeera:
“Valdivieso’s [the chair, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, Ambassador of Ecuador to the United Kingdom and Chair of this negotiation] draft text does not limit plastic production or address chemicals used in plastic products, which have been contentious issues at the talks.”
“About 100 countries want to limit production as well as tackle cleanup and recycling. Many have said it’s essential to address toxic chemicals. Oil-producing countries only want to eliminate plastic waste.”
“More than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced globally each year, half of which is for single-use items.”
“Nearly half, or 46 percent, ends up in landfills, while 17 percent is incinerated and 22 percent is mismanaged and becomes rubbish.”
What the next steps for the Plastics Treaty negotiation are, at the moment unclear, but it is evident that Middle Powers in Europe, Latin America and Indo-Pacific are not yet capable of forging collaboration in the face of a consensus rule.
Let us see where the negotiation goes from here, if at all. Meanwhile, let’s turn back to MPs and to situations where consensus does not govern.
Image Credit: AP
