Talks on creating a "Paris Treaty for plastics" just stalled - here's why, and what happens next

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Clemence Schmid, Director, Global Plastics Action Partnership: This is about 6 million tons of plastic every year that leaks into the ocean. To give you an idea, this is the equivalent of one garbage truck per minute.

Robin Pomeroy, Host, Radio Davos: Just say that again. How much is going into the ocean?

Clemence Schmid: One garbage truck per minute.

Robin Pomeroy: Welcome to Radio Davos, the podcast from the World Economic Forum that looks at the biggest challenges and how we might solve them. This week, I was hoping to bring you news of a global plastics treaty - but the UN negotiations in Busan, South Korea ended without an agreement.

Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, head of Panama delegation at the plastics talks: Every day of delay is a day against humanity. Postponing negotiation do not postpone the crisis.

Robin Pomeroy: I wasn’t in Busan, but I have a colleague who was. Clemence Schmid, who runs the Global Plastics Action Partnership, tells us what happened and what happens next - and how action against plastics pollution will not wait.

Clemence Schmid: There's a lot of things that are happening. There's a lot of negotiation on commas and brackets, but there's also a lot of action that many stakeholders which have this will to see the glass half full and to really want to make a difference and a change are already bringing.

Robin Pomeroy: The glass is half full - the challenge is huge - but the will is strong.

Clemence Schmid: We don't have to stay or remain a throwaway society. We can be a society that preserves resources, that actually care for it because we see the value of it.

Robin Pomeroy: Subscribe or follow Radio Davos wherever you get your podcasts, or visit wef.ch/podcasts where you will also find our sister programmes, Meet the Leader and Agenda Dialogues.

I’m Robin Pomeroy, and with this readout from the plastics treaty talks...

Clemence Schmid: Every minute.

Robin Pomeroy: This is Radio Davos.

Joining us to talk about plastics and the as yet unsuccessful negotiations to create a global treaty on plastics is someone who's just arrived back from those talks. It's my colleague, Clemence Schmid. Hi Clemence. How are you?

Clemence Schmid: Good, thank you.

Robin Pomeroy: Now, Clemence, you are director of the Global Plastics Action Partnership. What is that?

Clemence Schmid: So the Global Plastic Action Partnership or GPAP, is an initiative founded by the World Economic Forum, together with multi-stakeholder partners across governments and private sector to fight plastic pollution and translate commitment into action at a national and global level.

Robin Pomeroy: So it's multi-stakeholder. Give us an idea of kind of who are the stakeholders in this.

Clemence Schmid: So we're working with governments, obviously, at a national level. We're working with the private sector, meaning the companies across value chains meaning on different parts of the business. We're working with the civil society, with local communities. In the case of plastic and waste management, the informal sector or the waste pickers, which are the people that you would see in the streets picking up our trash.

Robin Pomeroy: Right. So really broad. This is what the Forum does is it brings together very disparate people who might otherwise not be talking to each other.

Clemence Schmid: Absolutely. Different point of view, different starting point. And also each of them with an added value into the conversation.

Robin Pomeroy: Okay. Let's talk about that conversation, which is about plastics. And plastics have been around, you know, all our lives and probably a generation or two before. But only fairly recently, I think, has the general public really started to consider it a major environmental problem. Could you give us some idea of what is the problem that you're trying to solve here?

Clemence Schmid: I think you said it right. I think as a society as a whole, we've become kind of addicted to plastic, probably unintentionally.

To give you a size, an idea of the magnitude, it's about 460 million tons of plastic which are produced every year, about half of that volume is designed to be used only one. We call this single use or short lived plastics. Think about the cup of water you might be taking at a dispenser just to drink a sip of water and that would be discarded afterwards.

And part of the part of the problem that we are trying to to address is currently only 9% of the plastic that we're using is being recycled, which means the vast majority of it is being discarded. So it's being wasted and leaks into the environment. This is about 6 million tons of plastic every year that leaks into the ocean. To give you an idea, this is the equivalent of one garbage truck per minute.

And when you're talking about leakage into land, this is twice that amount. So we're talking two garbage trucks per minute that end up into our environment instead of stayin within the economy.

Robin Pomeroy: Just say that again. How much is going into the ocean? This leakage, as you call it.

Clemence Schmid: One garbage truck per minute.

Robin Pomeroy: One garbage truck per minute. And this is a product, these are products that hang around for a long time. It's not like they'll just be washed away somewhere.

Clemence Schmid: Yes. Plastic is one of those material with many properties. Some of them are vital to the life that we are living today. But one of the disadvantage it has at what we call end of life, which is basically what happens after it's being used, is that it doesn't degrade like other materials. So plastic can stay for over a thousand years into the into the environment.

Robin Pomeroy: So let's talk about you've just come back from, I believe, South Korea, where there was the fifth and final - in theory, it was meant to be the final - negotiation. We've covered this process on Radio Davos. Listeners can go back. I did one I think, before the negotiations started. I think I did another in the middle or round about the third of these five talks. And so we were hoping and expecting that by the fifth one, this was how it was all set up, there would be a draft treaty, a global treaty on what the world does about plastics.

Could you give us an idea of what that treaty should have been or still might be - if you're going to be optimistic - in the future, what what would it do?

Clemence Schmid: So in 2022 at the United Nations Environmental Assembly, a wide majority of countries voted a resolution which was brought by Peru and Rwana together to establish an internationally binding, legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution, including in the marine environment.

This instrument, which is what we call the plastics treaty, was supposed to be negotiated in two years. Establishing what we call the International Negotiating Committee or agency that would convene every six months, which is effectively what has happened since the end of of 2022 and INC-5 in Busan, South Korea should have been the last negotiation round for the treaty.

What I think is also important is to understand into the multilateral context, how does this play out? Because for us, it seems like meeting every six months and a two year process is very long. In the multilateral environment it is not very long. There is a lot of step and processes that needs to be followed. The United Nation operates on what we call a consensus base, which is 172 countries in that stage do need to agree on every single line, and every single dot, comma and brackets do matter.

For perspective that treaty is probably one of the biggest negotiation at the international level which is happening since the Rio conference, which happened in 1992, which established what we know today as the COP. The most visible one is the climate COP. The one in Baku just finished. It was COP29. 29 gives you the number of rounds of negotiation that those processes are going to go through. So you can imagine five rounds on something that was supposed to be legally binding. So something that is going to be enforced legally across every single countries. Given the different national context was extremely ambitious.

Robin Pomeroy: I'll come back to this idea of how effective, the pros and cons of this kind of multilateral process n a moment. But let's just stay on plastics. What would this treaty do? I assume there would be a limited ambition version, which would do a few things, or a very wide ranging treaty. And this is what the negotiations I'm assuming are about. Would it limit the production of plastics, the use of plastics, would it govern the way plastics are disposed of? What kinds of things are most likely to be in that treaty that then countries would be expected and companies and societies be expected to implement?

Clemence Schmid: Now, it's a great question. And I think where you're going at is what is the scope of the treaty? And that's actually one of the still contentious points when we're going deep into the negotiation, because I think what the UNEA resolution brought is this common understanding and this common willingness to end plastic pollution.

So on the what, there's a lot of alignment. On the how we do this, this is where you start seeing the divergence. And we oppose, to be simplistic, what we call a waste management treaty, i.e. that will only take care of what's happening after we used the plastic.

As I mentioned, only 9% is recycled. So that's probably things that we can do better as a society at large to actually retain that material into the economy.

But there is another piece which what is what we call the full lifecycle of plastic, which will take into account also the extraction, the production, the design of the product on top of managing the waste part of it.

Robin Pomeroy: This INC-5, this meeting in South Korea, did not result in a treaty being agreed. Why is that?

Clemence Schmid: So because there is still a lot of divergence and the member states, the countries, couldn't agree on what would what will finally be finally be the text.

But before we call it a complete failure or a lack of success. I think it's really important to also share how the process has gone through and the progress that we've made.

We started from a broad idea of ending plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, by 2040. It got us through the first three rounds of negotiation where there's been a lot of question around what's the scope, what's the rule, how we're going to to decide what should it be a full lifecycle, should it be a waste management treaty, got us therefore into a text after INC-4 the previous round of negotiation.

The text that was brought forward by by the INC was over 77 pages, almost 80 pages, I think, and over 4,000 brackets. In the world of multilateralism, brackets means it's not yet agreed. So you can imagine the amount of wording and sentences that were not agreed, including the scope of the treaty between a waste management and a full lifecycle. And I think...

Robin Pomeroy: So that's still not agreed then, whether this should be - we could have a treaty... It's about pollution. You could say we produce as much as we like, as long as we don't dump it in the sea or let it scatter around on the land. And I can imagine the kinds of stakeholders who might favour that. And then there's others who would say, no, we need to maybe reduce the plastic we're producing in the first place. If you do that, there'll be less plastic around. You know, there's other things we can use instead. Or reuse lots of items. So it could in fact cover those things as well right?

Clemence Schmid: It is still one of the big contentious point. And I think one of the main reason why we haven't yet a treaty out of out of Busan is to really finalise the alignment on how are we going to solve for plastic pollution. Although we got now to a text which is much more palatable with articles which are much clearer. It's about 22 pages. And we focused on really the critical, the critical question that we still need to solve or that member states still need to to solve in the rest of the process. So I think we've done, we've gone a long way from where we started.

Robin Pomeroy: So what happens now? Is there going to be an INC-6? Do we start again? What is it?

Clemence Schmid: So we don't call it yet an INC-6. So in the terminology, the numbers talk about a session. So you need to close a session in order to reopen a new one. So the INC-5 session hasn't closed officially. So what we will see now as a reconvening is not a 6, but what we call an INC-5.2. And that INC-5.2 will basically resume the negotiations to where they've been left off and agreed by the member state at INC-5, which is taking the text I was mentioning before, those 22 pages, and basically continue then egotiation.

Robin Pomeroy: And there's a date set for that?

Clemence Schmid: Not yet. We know it will happen in 2025. We are yet to know when exactly will happen and where also those gathering will happen.

Robin Pomeroy: So coming to this from the outside as I am. And I've not read the draft document with all its brackets in there. I've covered talks like this before and I know exactly what you mean by the suggested wording, which could be modified or deleted or whatever. Very complex. Some of it quite arcane to the casual onlooker. I haven't seen that, but what you said to me, if you've not yet decided whether the scope of this covers the life cycle or just covers the end of life of plastics. It sounds like we're still a long way from a treaty that will actually have a real impact on the world. Am I right in thinking that or am I wrong?

Clemence Schmid: No. So I don't think we're far away. I think those days are the exact tough questions that we need to answer.

So I'm really not surprised this is going back and forth, and I think we're crystallising the discussion on exactly the points, which is we, all of us as a society, as individual, consume a lot of plastic for very good reason sometimes, sometimes for probably something which is more convenience- based. And we all need to get think about, how we are going, what are the plastics that are that are needed? What are the ones that we should keep using? What are the ones that can be potentially avoidable?

Robin Pomeroy: So what do you think might happen? Give us an imaginary scenario. A treaty is passed and then it comes into force at whatever moment. What might people - all of us use plastic all over the world - what differences might we notice? And what differences might companies notice in the way they operate?

Clemence Schmid: So obviously it will depend on what the treaty covers. But I think no matter what it covers, it will have impact on our on our daily life and it will have impact on the way companies handle business.

Some changes might be very visible also to the individual and to to each of us. So, for example, if we decided to ban certain element and some national regulation actually do it. You probably hear it, I'm French. The French passed a regulation in 2023 banning single use cutlery and usage in fast food, takeaway food.

Robin Pomeroy: In supermarkets as well in France - I do cross the border to go shopping in France and there's much less plastic and then the fruit and vegetables area, for example. So things like that could spread to other countries.

Interesting. You mentioned Rwanda is a player in this, and certainly some countries in Africa were way ahead of the rest of the world banning single use plastic bags, weren't they. So these are things that a lot of countries may be already doing, but could spread more widely as a result of this treaty?

Clemence Schmid: Could spread more widely, could be more uniform. And as such will also help. We're asking also from a company point of view, that will also help what are today global supply chains. Some of those changes will impact a product design. It is much simpler to handle if the regulation are harmonised at a global level.

Robin Pomeroy: And you think we'll see that garbage truck that's tipping its full load into the ocean, not literally, but that's the amount we talk about, literally, that about every how often?

Clemence Schmid: Every minute.

Robin Pomeroy: Every minute - are we going to see that reduced because of those shipping.

Clemence Schmid: I think that's the reason why everyone is spending a lot of time and energy to negotiate a treaty, but also to change the way we operate in our daily life, whether it's us as individuals, whether it's companies, whether it's government. That's the work that GPAP, which I'm leading, is intending to lead.

Robin Pomeroy: Clemence, I'm going to put two sceptical points to you now. I'm playing devil's advocate here because I would like to see the glass half full. But let's look at the multilateral thing.

As we saw before, as you mentioned, COP29 for the climate change, 29 of those things. It moves at such a slow pace. Greenhouse gas emissions aren't coming down in most parts of the world. It has to be all agreed by consensus. Some people, even people at the heart of the COP process, the climate COP process, have said in some ways it's not really fit for purpose and they want to see some changes to it.

What do you think about the multilateral process? It's got huge weaknesses. But then again, you can't force any country to do anything. So I don't really see what the option is.

What's your feeling about the whole process? You've had five of these meetings. You're going to have more. I'm sure there'll be more after that even if a treaty is agreed.

Is it glass half full or half empty? Strengths and weaknesses of that process?

Clemence Schmid: Yes, I think you have almost the answer into your question. It has strengths. It has weaknesses. The strength of it is once you agree something on consensus, it really works and it produces results.

And I think one of the best examples in the multilateral agreement which I'll put on the table is the Montreal Protocol. You might recall it was talking about the depletion of the ozone layer. There was a lot of scientific fact. Countries came together, agreed relatively quickly in the world of multilateral agreement on solution banning certain certain substances. And we can now observe the ocean layers being healthy again, which is a proof that multilateralism can function.

Obviously, when you expand that process into questions which are much more complex, we are touching not just one single sector but across sector with interlinkages that we sometimes don't even completely understand. It makes the whole process much more complicated.

Robin Pomeroy: Yes, the Montreal Protocol is often cited as the great hope for those of us who want to see the environment protected through multilateral processes. But it was much simpler, wasn't it, because there were a handful of chemicals, the CFCs, the refrigerants, these industrial processes that were relatively easy, although it didn't seem it at the time, to replace.

Then you've got climate change, which is literally countless - I don't suppose there's a scientist in the world who knows all of the inputs that go into the greenhouse effect.

Maybe plastics is somewhere between the two in that it is very, very complex. There is not one plastic. There are many of them, many different uses, many different lifecycles of plastic. It's not as simple as the ozone layer and the CFCs and all that. It's perhaps, I hope, not as intractable as climate change. Would you agree? It's somewhere in the middle, meaning that maybe there is hope this could really work for plastics pollution?

Clemence Schmid: No, I think you're really right. I think I always say plastic is very tangible. It's something that you touch. That you see. We're talking about, you know, like a tonne of plastic. You take a big scale, you can weigh it. It's much more concrete and therefore the actions can be simpler.

But to your point, it is also part of our everyday life. It is, there is a lot of types of plastic is not just is not just one thing and it's also across multiple sectors. If we were to think how often are we as individuals in contact with plastic of what is called or define as plastic? I'm sure a lot of us would be surprised in terms of how many types of plastics there is.

Robin Pomeroy: I mentioned I was going to put two sceptical points. This is the other one. So when I go to that French supermarket and it's like, that's lovely, now they've got brown paper bags for my weigh and pay apples or whatever instead of plastic, which was always thrown away before. I often wonder, and I wonder this a lot when it comes to plastics recycling, the consumer sees this, but is it really having an impact or are we doing it more for performative reasons to reassure the consumer that they're doing something? I'm sure this is being used on an industrial scale around the world. Whether I put my apples into a very thin, small plastic bag, does it really make that much difference?

I wonder what your view on that is and this treaty talk is so interesting because it brings together industrial producers, industrial users of plastics for whom maybe, you know, Robin's plastic bag in the Leclerc supermarket doesn't even weigh anything on the scales. Is there a worry that whatever is achieved in this treaty is a bit performative and it's just a bit to make us all feel a bit better about ourselves?

Clemence Schmid: If I go back to what I shared at the beginning, out of the 460 million tons of plastic that is being produced, about half of that volume is designed to be single use or short lived. And this is Robin's plastic bag as an example, all of the products that we're in contact with on a daily basis, sometimes several times a day.

And I also want to say in that garbage truck that we've been talking about, this is the bulk of that garbage truck, because it's something that you and I don't really value beyond the couple of seconds or the couple of minutes that we are using it. We we don't value our plastic bag, which is just a mean to move or apples from the supermarket bag.

Robin Pomeroy: We're not buying the plastic bag, we're buying what's inside it. And the same goes for pretty much any packaging that's only used once, right?

Clemence Schmid: Exactly. And I think, therefore, this is, this plastic that ends up afterwards leaking into the environment because it doesn't have a value.

And I think also bringing back and all of us to think that the resources we were using, including the plastic bag, should have a value and needs to be valued as such by each one of us. It is not just something. It is not a talk between government. It doesn't have to be just a talk between companies or between the big industries - is also from a from a mindset point of view. As we don't have to stay or remain a throwaway society. We can be a society that preserves resources that actually care for it because we see the value of it.

Robin Pomeroy: So it is more than just for show. I'm delighted to hear that.

Finally, you run the Global Plastics Action Partnership, GPAP, here at the World Economic Forum, bringing all the stakeholders together. What input can you have? What impetus can you give as GPAP or as the World Economic Forum, particularly as we are weeks now away from the Annual Meeting in Davos where a lot of those big players are going to be meeting in Davos, talking about the big issues. This will be one of them, certainly. What is it that GPAP or the Forum can do to get these talks back on track or if they're still on track to push that forward to a successful conclusion?

Clemence Schmid: GPAP existed before the treaty, we've been founded in 2018, and that was founded out of the realisation that there is a huge need that we do need to start thinking about how are we going to keep the plastic into our economies and do this also in partnership with countries which are most in need. So countries which are developing economies and usually are lacking the basic infrastructure which we are very lucky to see here in Switzerland, for example.

And I think one of the strengths that, the World Economic Forum, we have is being able to have that experience on the ground today, working with over 20 countries, experiencing that multi-stakeholder approach into the national reality and be able to bring those insights and bring those learnings, not only just the talks, but also the action in what's happening up into the global scene to inform the negotiation, because there's a lot of things that are happening.

There's a lot of negotiation on commas and brackets, but there's also a lot of action that many stakeholders which have this will to see the glass of half full and to really want to make a different and a change are already bringing.

So how can we showcase already what's happening, bring the insight and also spark the conversation on how can we ensure we give that enabling framework? How can we ensure we help innovation coming out of those treaty?

Circular economy is an opportunity. We were talking about the changes before. We often approach change as being something negative, as being something that's going to have bad consequences. But change can be positive. Change can also spark opportunities, new job creation, improvement of job creation.

I don't want to make a too strong a statement, but I would say any job is better than picking waste on a dump site.

Robin Pomeroy: Clemence Schmid, thanks very much for joining us on Radio Dallas.

Clemence Schmid: Thank you.

Robin Pomeroy: Find out more about the Global Plastics Action Partnership at globalplasticaction.org - link in the show notes to this episode.

As the Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos is just weeks away, please make sure to follow Radio Davos wherever you get your podcasts to keep up with what’s happening there.

This episode of Radio Davos was reported and presented by me, Robin Pomeroy. Studio production was by Taz Kelleher.

We will be back very soon, but for now thanks to you for listening and goodbye.