The air in Geneva must have been thick; not with pollution, but with disappointment. After nine frantic days and one marathon all-night session that bled into the dawn, it all fell apart. Global talks to forge a historic, legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution collapsed. Miserably.

Diplomats from 184 nations, most of whom had arrived in Switzerland with real optimism, packed their bags with no deal and no clear path forward.

A small but powerful bloc of oil and gas-producing nations, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, successfully held the world hostage. They argued the drafts were “unbalanced” and overstepped their mandate by daring to mention the one thing that matters most: cutting the astronomical growth of plastic production. Their position was also echoed by the US.

A Problem at the Global Scale

Over 100 countries, led by the European Union and host Switzerland, wanted an agreement on limiting plastic pollution; something similar to what the Paris Agreement is for climate. And the reasoning behind it is simple: we produce way too much plastic.

Since the 1950s, we have produced an estimated 9.2 billion metric tons of the stuff, though the real figure is probably much larger. That’s more than one ton for every single person alive today, and the pace is only accelerating. We now churn out a staggering 460 million metric tons every year. Without a radical intervention like the one proposed in Geneva, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) projects that figure will nearly triple by 2060.

It’s already very bad, and it’s getting worse, fast.

At the same time, recycling and cleaning up plastic just don’t work at this scale. Recycling was the comforting myth the industry sold us for decades. The brutal reality is that less than 10% of all plastic waste has ever been recycled (and it’s not getting much better). The rest — billions of tons of it — sits in landfills, is burned in incinerators releasing toxic fumes, or, most visibly, chokes our natural world. Every year, an estimated 11 million metric tons of plastic waste pours into our oceans. That’s the equivalent of a garbage truck dumping its load into the sea every single minute of every single day.

That’s the crux of the plastic problem. You cannot solve a flood by mopping the floor — you must turn off the faucet. Everyone who has truly studied the problem has come to the same conclusion.

The Powerful Handful

But for the petrostates, whose economic future is increasingly tied to the plastics industry as the world weans itself off their energy products, plastic is money. Turning off that faucet would reduce their income. And so, they filibustered, obstructed, and ran out the clock. They opposed healthy action against plastic pollution; and they won.

“Once again, a handful of obstructionist states have hijacked the plastics treaty talks, leaving the world drowning in plastic,” commented Lara Iwanicki, Strategy and Advocacy Director in Brazil at Oceana.

“The inability to reach an agreement in Geneva must be a wakeup call for the world: ending plastic pollution means confronting fossil fuel interests head on. The vast majority of governments want a strong agreement, yet a handful of bad actors were allowed to use process to drive such ambition into the ground. We cannot continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. The time for hesitation is over,” added Graham Forbes, Global Plastics Campaign Lead at Greenpeace USA

How To Block a Global Treaty

The central conflict was about the scope of the treaty. The 184 nations that attended the discussions split into two main camps:

• The High Ambition Coalition (comprising over 100 countries, including the EU and many developing nations): They argued that solving the plastic crisis requires shutting off the source. They wanted a treaty with legally binding caps on the production of new “virgin” plastic and controls on toxic chemicals.
• The Petrostate Bloc (Led by Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kuwait, and Iran): They insisted the treaty should only focus on “downstream” issues like waste management, reuse, and recycling. For these oil-producing nations, plastic is a key growth market for their fossil fuel industry, so limiting production was a non-starter.

While the US was not a leader of that obstructionist bloc, it was also not a champion for an ambitious treaty. The US position was, at best, a powerful drag on ambition.

The petrostate bloc, despite being in the minority, was able to block the entire process because of how the negotiations were run.

The talks operated on a norm of consensus-based decision-making. This effectively gave every country veto power. The small group of obstructionist nations simply had to refuse to agree to any draft that included production limits. And that’s essentially what they did. They used the rules of the process to ensure that the will of the majority could not move forward, leading to a complete deadlock.

When the discussions adjourned, the parties agreed to meet at some future, undetermined date.

Other Paths to Consider

This was as unconvincing an end as you can get. In fact, because of how the discussions were run, many delegates believe a consensus can never be reached using this system.

 “Doing the same thing again and expecting a different result — that’s the definition of insanity,” said Christina Dixon of the Environmental Investigation Agency.

The overwhelming presence of industry lobbyists was also a problem. An investigation by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) revealed that 234 lobbyists from the fossil fuel and chemical industries had registered for the Geneva talks. That’s more than the official delegations of all 27 European Union countries combined. And these lobbyists didn’t just walk the halls. Some were embedded within official country delegations, whispering their industry’s talking points directly into the ears of negotiators.

“We have decades of evidence showing the fossil fuel and chemical industries’ playbook: deny, distract, derail,” said Ximena Banegas, a campaigner with CIEL. They successfully shifted the conversation away from production and toward waste management — a problem they created and for which they refuse to take responsibility.

There have been some productive talks. In particular, there was talk about the High Ambition Coalition abandoning the UN process altogether and forming a “treaty of the willing,” much like the Ottawa Treaty that banned landmines. This would allow them to move forward without the obstructionists, but this was not agreed upon. Another option discussed was to force a vote. The negotiating rules allow for a two-thirds majority vote as a “last resort,” but the consensus culture has been so ingrained that no one has been willing to trigger it. After the debacle in Geneva, that may change.

For now, the world is left with no treaty, and the plastic tap remains wide open.

Why the Plastic Crisis Is So Pressing

The Paris Agreement is far from a resounding success. It was, indeed, a landmark agreement; virtually all countries pledged voluntary participation. But there are no enforcement mechanisms, only “name and shame” and indirect coercion. Furthermore, Donald Trump took the US out of the Paris Agreement. Joe Biden brought the country back, only for Trump to take it out again.

Yet, for all its shortcomings, the Paris Agreement at least laid the problem bare on the table and gave countries a framework they could participate in. We have nothing of the sort for plastic.

Like climate change, plastic pollution is sometimes seen as a distant and abstract threat. But, also like climate change, plastic is very harmful.

Firstly, it’s an environmental catastrophe. Plastic debris kills more than a million seabirds and 100,000 marine animals annually. They starve after filling their stomachs with plastic bags they mistake for food or become entangled in discarded fishing nets and six-pack rings. As this waste breaks down under the sun and waves, it doesn’t disappear. It fragments into ever-smaller pieces known as microplastics. These tiny toxic particles, often smaller than a grain of sand, have infiltrated every corner of the globe. They’ve been found in the deepest trenches of the ocean, in the ice of the Arctic, in the rain falling on our cities, and in the air we breathe. You have them inside you, and you ingest more every week.

Second, it’s a horrendous human health crisis that’s affecting all of us. The danger isn’t just the physical particles; it’s the cocktail of toxic chemicals used to make them. Over 99% of plastic is derived from fossil fuels, and it is manufactured using a brew of additives. This includes stabilizers, flame retardants, and plasticizers like phthalates and bisphenols. Many of these chemicals are known endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, and neurotoxins. They leach out of plastic packaging into our food and water. Scientific studies have linked these chemicals to a terrifying range of health problems. Some of these include various cancers, infertility, developmental disorders in children, obesity, and heart disease.

Finally, it’s a climate crisis in hiding. The plastic industry is the fossil fuel industry’s Plan B. As the world transitions to renewable energy, Big Oil is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into building new petrochemical facilities to turn fracked gas into more plastic. It’s no coincidence that the oil-producing countries attacked the plastic agreement.

The entire plastic lifecycle is a massive source of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2019, plastic production and incineration added more than 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. That amount is equal to the emissions of 189 coal-fired power plants. If the industry continues its rampant expansion, by 2050, emissions from plastics could consume up to 13% of the entire remaining global carbon budget. The fight to stop plastic pollution and the fight to stop climate change are, fundamentally, the same fight.

Consensus Killed Ambition

Those who have been following high-level debates on plastic will not be surprised by the outcome. But the tragedy of Geneva is that the vast majority of nations understood the problem and seemed genuinely motivated to achieve progress. They came ready to negotiate a treaty with teeth: one that included legally binding targets to reduce the production of new, or “virgin,” plastic; that would phase out the most toxic chemicals; and that created a robust financial mechanism to help developing nations manage the transition.

But the negotiating process itself became their undoing.

The talks operated on a norm of “consensus,” a polite way of saying any single country — or small group of them — could effectively veto progress. This procedural quicksand is where the petrostates, vastly outnumbered but unyielding, made their stand. No matter how many other delegates pleaded for urgency, representatives from Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Kuwait simply dug in their heels. They knew they didn’t need to win the argument; they just needed to prevent an agreement.

“While the negotiations will continue, they will fail if the process does not change. When a process is broken, as this one is, it is essential for countries to identify the necessary solutions to fix it and then do it. We need a restart, not a repeat performance. Countries that want a treaty must now leave this process and form a treaty of the willing. And that process must include options for voting that deny the tyranny of consensus we have watched play out here,” commented David Azoulay from the Center for International Environmental Law.

This Isn’t Over

The paralysis in Geneva is infuriating, and it’s easy to feel helpless when global politics fails so spectacularly. But the fight against plastic was never going to be won in a single conference room. The countries and governments that want to make an impact can, and they can (at least to some extent) also push others who are on the fence (for instance, by adding taxes on plastic for countries without a healthy plastic policy).

The rest of us can also play a part. Individual action matters, but it won’t stop plastic pollution by itself. If you want to make an impact, it means turning up the political heat at home, demanding our governments stop bowing to the fossil fuel lobby and either force a vote at the next session or form a coalition of the willing to move forward without the saboteurs. It means supporting the frontline communities and championing local and state-level laws from single-use plastic bans to policies that make producers responsible for their waste.

The diplomats may have failed, but the global movement to break free from plastic can be larger and more powerful than a handful of petrostates. Otherwise, we will all bear the cost.