Author: CIEL
NAIROBI — A week of negotiations in Nairobi left all options on the table for a proposed Global Plastic Treaty but fell far short of the progress needed to deliver an ambitious treaty on an equally ambitious timeline. Governments that began the week with a “Zero Draft” of the treaty text and a clear mandate to agree on an active intersessional program of work are leaving eight days later with a “Revised Zero Draft” that has ballooned to 100 plus pages, with no intersessional agenda, and a clear warning that entertaining endless debate by those few who want to block progress at every turn is a recipe for inertia and eventual disaster. “This week made clear that an overwhelming majority of countries demand an ambitious treaty that covers the full lifecycle of plastics,” said CIEL President Carroll Muffett. “That treaty is still achievable in these talks, but only if negotiators acknowledge and confront the coordinated campaign by fossil fuel and petrochemical exporters to prevent real progress of any kind.”