A global deal to halt plastic pollution is at risk of collapsing amid opposition from a group of two dozen fossil-fuel-producing nations and the United States that support plastics as a driver of demand for oil, gas and coal.
The countries are resisting a push by more than 100 others to include limits on plastic production as a way of reducing emissions and trash in a treaty they’ve been negotiating since 2022. The sixth round of talks this week in Geneva are meant to be the last chance to strike an agreement, but countries remain divided with just two days left to negotiate.
“Unhinged plastic production is the petrochemicals industry’s plan B,” Juan Carlos Monterrey-Gomez, Panama’s lead negotiator, told reporters this week. “They know that the world is moving away from fossil fuels and more into renewable energies, but they want to safeguard those practices that have hampered not only our economies but also our health.”
Plastics are made with feedstock derived from fossil fuels, and the majority of emissions from plastic production occur early in the production stage. The International Energy Agency says global oil use is being driven largely by petrochemical demand, particularly from China, in a trend that risks “masking” a projected peak in oil demand this decade.
Reducing plastic production is a key part of keeping global temperatures from exceeding dangerous levels, some experts say. A 2024 study by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that plastic production generated around 5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 and that even with lower-than-expected growth in plastic production, the emissions would more than double by 2050. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates that global plastic use will nearly triple by 2060.
“Every ton of plastic that we produce comes with a carbon bill. Every time that we generate a plastic product, we are making it more difficult to fight the climate crisis,” Monterrey-Gomez said.
Plastic also poses “grave, growing and underappreciated dangers” to human and wildlife health, according to a study published this month in the Lancet. It says that a key driver of increased plastic output is a “pivot” by fossil fuel corporations and nations that are the top producers of plastic and petrochemicals “in response to declining demand for fossil energy.”
More than 180 countries are in Geneva for the two-week treaty negotiations. But the link between plastics and fossil fuels has bogged down talks since long before this month’s summit.
The talks come as global efforts to curb rising temperatures have faltered and the Trump administration rolls back support for renewable energy in favor of boosting fossil fuel production.
The U.S. delegation — a team of nearly 30 people led by the same State Department officials who led delegations under the Biden administration — has said little in the formal negotiations. But the U.S. has proposed deleting language in the treaty objective that refers to the full life cycle of plastics, meaning from production to design to disposal.
The deletion would alter the treaty’s original mandate from the U.N. Environment Assembly and could lead to an agreement focused on waste management.
“This would result in a stripped-down, least-common-denominator result, contrary to the UNEA mandate,” said David Wirth, a former attorney-adviser for the State Department’s Bureau of Oceans, International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.
Biden pursued similar policy
In the months after President Donald Trump took office, the U.S. opted out of nearly all international climate gatherings, including the U.N. Ocean Conference and annual climate talks in Bonn, Germany. It didn’t participate in international talks in April to put a levy on shipping pollution but circulated a letter that aimed tosway the outcome.
Wirth said the U.S. seemed to be coordinating more closely before the meeting with countries that share its views — and with those unlikely to — than appears typical for this administration.
Reuters reported last week that the U.S. sent letters to several delegations ahead of the plastic talks saying it would not agree to a treaty that includes limits on plastic production.
“The United States supports an agreement that respects national sovereignty and focuses on reducing plastic pollution without imposing onerous restrictions on producers that would harm U.S. companies and the nearly one million American workers employed in plastics and related industries,” a State Department spokesperson said in an email.
The nation opposes “impractical and ineffective global approaches” the spokesperson added, referring to plastic production targets or bans and restrictions on plastic additives or plastic products that “would increase the costs of plastic products.”
The approach, while not a major departure from the Biden administration, aligns more closely with a group of oil-producing nations led by Saudi Arabia than with the more than 100 others who are backing a treaty that would limit plastic production and restrict some of the riskiest chemicals.
It’s also an approach that has received support from industry.
“The White House and frankly all the agencies involved in this task, they took it seriously,” Ross Eisenberg, president of America’s Plastic Makers, a subsidiary of the American Chemistry Council, said in an interview Tuesday from Geneva. “They see the opportunities for U.S. competitiveness if we do this thing right, and frankly for the environment.”
The shale gas boom has been a major factor in the rise in plastic production in the United States, which is now the world’s second-largest producer behind China. Of the roughly $200 billion in chemical industry projects announced since the shale boom began around 2010, $40 billion have been in plastics, Eisenberg said.
“We have a significant competitive advantage to attract manufacturing, to maintain manufacturing of plastics here, and to supply the rest of the world for all the things that the plastic is good for,” he said.
Eisenberg doesn’t view plastics as a second act for fossil fuels but as a way to take advantage of natural resources as the industry evolves.
Environmental groups see it differently.
“We know that the petrochemical industry, and oil and gas more broadly, is increasingly relying on plastics for future economic profits, as much of the world shifts towards electrification and renewables,” Nick Mallos, vice president of conservation and ocean plastics at the Ocean Conservancy, said in an interview Tuesday from Geneva. “A formal cap on production would mean a potential hit at economics and profits.”
With little time left, countries will likely need to strike a compromise that combines what’s needed and what is politically achievable to reach an agreement.
A deal may lack details on production targets but leave space for future reductions by acknowledging that the amount of plastic being produced is unsustainable, said David Azoulay, a senior attorney on the health and environment program at the Center for International Environmental Law.
“There are many ways in which this could end in a failure,” Azoulay said from Geneva. But he added, “There is a narrow path to success.”
