Talks at the United Nations on forging a landmark treaty to combat the scourge of plastic pollution have made insufficient progress, the negotiations chair warned Saturday in a frank midway assessment.
The negotiations, which opened on Tuesday, have four days left to find consensus on a legally binding instrument that would tackle the growing problem choking the environment.
“Progress made has not been sufficient,” Ecuadoran diplomat Luis Vayas Valdivieso told delegates in a blunt summary as all 184 country delegations gathered in the main assembly hall.
“We have arrived at a critical stage where a real push to achieve our common goal is needed,” ahead of the Thursday deadline.
“Aug. 14 is not just a deadline for our work: it is a date by which we must deliver.”
The draft text as it stands, released publicly ahead of Saturday’s session, has now ballooned from 22 to 35 pages, with the number of brackets in the text going up from 371 to almost 1,500.
It does not specify which countries or groups inserted the proposed text — meaning the changes could have majority support or be backed by one country alone.
“Some articles still have unresolved issues and show little progress towards reaching a common understanding,” Valdivieso said.
“We have had 2½ years of opportunities for delegations to make proposals,” he said, adding: “there is no more time” for such interventions.
Countries have reconvened at the U.N. in Geneva to try and find common ground after the failure of what was supposed to be the fifth and final round of talks in Busan, South Korea, which closed in December without agreement.
