INC5: Negotiations for Global Plastics Treaty 5th meeting in Busan, South Korea

Plastic bottles and Styrafoam in Merri Creek

This is a live page for the next week.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Global Plastics Treaty is holding its fifth meeting in Busan, South Korea from 25 November to 1 December 2024 to prepare a treaty by the end of 2024. This meeting is it. 

Global Plastics pollution is an escalating Crisis that interlinks with the Biodiversity Crisis and Climate Crisis. The Health and environmental impacts of plastics, microplastics and nanoplastics are of increasing concern as more research is done.

The process for a Global Plastics Treaty was started in March 2022 at the resumed fifth session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-5.2). See my reports of INC1, INC2, INC3, INC4.

A Zero Draft of the treaty was prepared at INC4 with elements of both common rules for all parties, and a nationally driven policy framework, and many procedural issues still to sort out. As this zero draft contained some 1500 brackets, in the interim the Secretariat has prepared a non-paper  to try to streamline negotiations start.

Australia is a member of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastics Pollution, which put out this joint Ministerial statement before INC4.

UNEP INC5 website | CIEL INC5 preparatory work | Break Free From Plastic News |
IPEN Quick Views INC5 | Minderoo Foundation

25 November: Corporate Advocacy on the UN Global Plastics Treaty. A new report by InfluenceMap analyzes the plastic value chain’s advocacy on the UN Global Plastics Treaty and regional climate related-circular economy policies (Influence Map)

Background:

IISD/ENB have published an Explainer blog: What to Expect at Plastics INC-5

Climate Adam, 22 November 2024, How Plastics Fuel Climate Change