Plastic Treaty Negotiations: From the Busan Deadlock to the Geneva Resumed Session, Why Is Global Governance So Difficult?

A Difficult Journey Spanning Five Years

Plastic fragments have appeared in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, and microplastics have been found in the human placenta and bloodstream. Scientists have piled up evidence on these findings again and again, turning plastic pollution from merely an image on environmental organizations' posters into one of the most urgent issues on the global governance agenda. Yet a global treaty aimed at ending plastic pollution still cannot be finalized at the negotiating table.

From the historic resolution adopted by the United Nations Environment Assembly in 2022 to the repeated extended sessions in Geneva today, countries have been locked in a tug-of-war over controlling the full life cycle of plastics for more than five years. This is not just an environmental contest; it is also a convergence point for economic development models, trade rules, and geopolitical interests.

A Structural Challenge of a "Global" Problem

Plastic pollution has a typical transboundary nature. A river carries plastic waste into the ocean, which then drifts with ocean currents to coastlines thousands of kilometers away; microplastics circulate in air, food, and fresh water, and no country can stop them alone. This physical mobility constitutes the logical foundation for unified global action.

But global action has faced a fragmented reality from the very beginning. Over the past few decades, the international community's response to plastic pollution has mainly remained at the level of voluntary commitments, regional agreements, and end-of-pipe treatment. The Basel Convention regulates the transboundary movement of plastic waste, and the United Nations Conference on the Oceans has repeatedly called for attention to marine litter, but these are all piecemeal repairs. What truly needs to change is the entire chain of plastics—from production, consumption, to disposal—which is a systemic project that reaches into the core of the economy.

In March 2022, 175 countries adopted a resolution at the United Nations Environment Assembly to establish an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), authorizing it to develop a legally binding global treaty on plastic pollution. This was seen as the most important multilateral environmental agreement since the Paris Agreement. But the resolution was only the starting line; the real difficulty lies in translating ambition into specific provisions that all countries can accept.

Marathon-like Negotiations and Repeatedly Stalled Divergences

The first meeting of the negotiating committee was held in Uruguay, a small South American country, at the end of 2022. Subsequently, from Paris to Nairobi, from Ottawa to Busan, every meeting was accompanied by intensive text consultations and exchanges of positions. The Busan meeting in November 2024 was originally intended to conclude the negotiations, but failed to reach a consensus. In August 2025, the meeting moved to Geneva for resumption and still ended with adjournment. In February 2026, negotiators returned to Geneva again and finally elected a new chair—Chile's ambassador to Geneva, Julio Cordano—but substantive divergences still remained on the table.

The core of the divergence is what exactly should be negotiated and how far regulation should go.On one side are the demands of the “ambitious” camp. The “High Ambition Coalition,” led by Rwanda and Norway, advocates that the treaty must restrict the production of primary plastic polymers, promote sustainable consumption, and establish a circular economy system covering the entire life cycle. They believe that focusing only on waste management would be tantamount to letting the problem continue to worsen. On the other side, some petrochemical exporting countries and major plastic-producing nations are highly sensitive to “production caps,” fearing that these would affect their domestic industries and trade competitiveness.

At its core, this divergence is whether the plastics treaty should serve as a “cleanup” or an “industrial transformation.” The former only requires countries to better manage plastic waste, while the latter demands a structural transformation of the fossil-fuel-driven plastics industry.

Financial issues are equally crucial to the overall picture. Developing countries hope the treaty will establish a dedicated multilateral fund to support waste management infrastructure, technology transfer, and capacity building. Many developed countries, meanwhile, insist on “polluter pays,” demanding that responsibility rest mainly on the production and consumption sides. How to define the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” has once again become a key point of contention here.

Who is pushing, and who is blocking?

Global negotiations have never taken place solely between governments. The involvement of business and civil society makes this contest more multidimensional.

The “Business Alliance for the Global Plastics Treaty,” convened by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and WWF, brings together dozens of companies and financial institutions. These businesses recognize that regulatory and reputational risks from plastic pollution are rising, and that rather than responding passively, they should actively participate in rule-making to gain a head start on the circular economy track. Fast-moving consumer goods giants and packaging manufacturers see new markets created by recycling and reuse technologies. At the same time, however, traditional petrochemical companies worry that the treaty will reduce demand for their core products. This rift within the industry makes the direction of international negotiations even more complicated.

Environmental groups, for their part, assume the role of “watchdogs.” Before the Busan negotiations, the “Break Free From Plastic” movement, together with Greenpeace and other organizations, launched a “Change Advocates” signature drive aimed at pressuring negotiators. Civil society participation keeps the negotiation process transparent, but it also makes it harder to reconcile divergent positions, because any compromise can be accused of “betraying commitments.”

Geneva: The “battlefield” and “mediation room” of global environmental governance

Why Geneva? This city, with a population of just a few hundred thousand, is nevertheless the center of global environmental governance. The United Nations Environment Programme, the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, the secretariats of the three international chemicals conventions, and numerous other international institutions are gathered here. On plastic issues, Geneva is not only a venue for negotiations but also a hub connecting trade, health, human rights, and environmental issues.

At the INC-5.2 meeting in August 2025, countries explored the possibility of aligning the plastics treaty with international trade rules. The World Trade Organization has been discussing the relationship between plastic pollution and trade policy, including tariff barriers, product standards, and chemical lists. Geneva’s unique position makes it a convergence point for these cross-cutting discussions.But from another perspective, Geneva is also a showcase of the limitations of global governance. Negotiations are repeatedly extended here, and documents are repeatedly revised here, demonstrating that multilateral mechanisms premised on consensus often struggle to produce results quickly when faced with deep conflicts of interest. Like the climate change negotiations, the plastics negotiations are becoming a constant reminder to the world of the "governance deficit."

Why is the plastics treaty so difficult to conclude?

We might understand this impasse at three levels.

First, plastics are the "infrastructure" of the modern economy. From food packaging to medical devices, from building materials to electronic components, plastics are almost everywhere. Strict restrictions on plastic production would mean chain-reaction impacts on countless downstream industries. Countries are at different stages of industrialization, so their definitions of "essential uses" naturally differ.

Second, the chain of responsibility for plastic pollution is extremely long. Upstream oil extraction, midstream polymer production, downstream brand owners and retailers, and end-of-line consumers and waste managers—each link tries to push costs onto the next. An effective treaty needs to simultaneously affect the distribution of interests across these links, which is far more difficult than a mere emission-reduction agreement.

Third, the geopolitical environment is not conducive to multilateral cooperation. In recent years, global trade frictions have intensified, and North-South confrontation has kept escalating in climate and biodiversity negotiations. The plastics issue cannot be separated from this broader climate. When countries are already mired in conflicts over security, tariffs, energy, and other areas, reaching consensus on plastics is naturally even more difficult.

A future without alternatives

Although the negotiating process is difficult, the direction cannot be reversed. No country can claim that it has already solved the plastic pollution problem. Even the European Union, which has moved relatively far ahead in circular economy legislation, is facing the real-world challenges of microplastic pollution and waste exports. Voluntary actions and regional agreements may offer some experience, but they cannot replace globally unified minimum standards.

Everyone knows that a treaty lacking in substance and severely diluted is not worth signing. But at the same time, a treaty that is too radical and cannot obtain ratification from enough countries will also become a dead letter. The negotiations ahead will be an art of finding a balance between "ambition" and "feasibility."

The resumed session in Geneva has only just begun, and the new chair, Chilean diplomat Cordono, faces a negotiating table more prone to division than ever before. But just like plastics themselves, the negotiating process, though it can be stretched and distorted, cannot be ignored. The global plastics treaty is destined to become a reality in the near future—but what it will look like still depends on whether countries are willing to find that narrow path between their own interests and the public interest.