The European Union and a coalition of Latin American, African and Pacific microstates denounced on Sunday « l’obstruction continue » of a group of oil-producing countries in ongoing negotiations in Busan, South Korea, aimed at establishing the first international treaty against plastic pollution.
“We are concerned about the continued obstruction of countries,” French Energy Minister Olga Givernet said at a news conference alongside delegates from Panama, Mexico, Fiji, Rwanda and the European Union.
“We are the coalition of those who want” an ambitious treaty, declared the representative of the Fiji Islands, Sivendra Michael, on the last day of negotiations, supposed to result Sunday evening or Monday morning at dawn, on a treaty text.
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China, the United States and Russia absent from this press conference
But no representatives from countries like China and the United States, the world's top two plastic producers, nor from Russia or other oil-producing countries were present at the coalition press conference.
If an agreement was not reached before the end of the negotiations scheduled for Sunday evening, the head of the Mexican delegation Camila Zepeda argued that these countries could already begin to move forward together to limit the impact of plastic pollution.
“Plastic in Panama is a weapon of mass destruction […] we are here to negotiate the most important global treaty for the survival of humanity” argued Juan Carlos Monterrey, the representative of Panama.
According to this newly formed coalition, the text currently being negotiated should include both restrictions on global plastic production and a list of dangerous products annexed to the treaty, which countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia or the Iran's oil producers – the raw material for plastic – have stubbornly refused since the start of the week.
