Hello and good morning from Geneva,
Summary: While the overall text is trending positively, major topics like scope, production, and finances threaten to overwhelm progress. An updated chairman’s text risks stalling momentum and the conference may run out of time.
Recap of Monday & Tuesday
As was predicted in my last update, Monday and Tuesday were very important to the overall progress towards reaching a consensus agreement. The majority of both days was filled with informal and informal-informal (inf-inf) meetings. These expedite countries sharing perspectives and positions to create bridges of compromise where possible. However, there are certain concepts found within the draft text, such as Article 6 (Production Caps) that are red lines for many countries, be they the United States, the Like-Minded Group, or other producing countries.
We saw several public expressions of frustration, particularly by the EU who spent a significant amount of time on Monday night delaying the process because the writing was on the wall is on the wall around Article 6. This reflects the Parties’ recognition of the criticality of timing and significant amount of work to get through.
Meeting with US Senate STAFFDEL
On the sidelines of the event, an industry group met with a bipartisan delegation from the Senate to share with them our perspectives on the agreement and to help answer any questions they had. Our key messages to them were that we want a deal – one that the US can support – and if that happens, we would like the Senate to ratify. Staff had many questions about product design, minimum recycled content, and TSCA. We also raised legislative opportunities such as STEWARD, CIRCLE, and Plastic Health Research Acts, as well as opportunities in progress such as the PACK Act, SOS 3.0, and others. Appreciation to ACC for organizing meeting space and coordinating with PLASTICS, VI, and AFPM to develop the agenda.
Wednesday & a new Chairman’s compromise text
The chair has made an unconventional decision to release an updated chairman‘s text this afternoon local time. Each contact group met this morning to do final read-outs before an afternoon plenary.
This approach can impede momentum to get to a deal when a country sees that the compromise text rejects their perspectives by the absence of their direct edits to treaty language. At INC 3, many countries were critical that the zero-draft developed by the UN Environmental Program did not include their perspectives, and the contact groups underwent a lengthy editing process that prevented the time to agree on intersessional meetings on key provisions of the text. I’m sure there’s a lesson in here, but I and the chairman just can’t put our fingers on it.
I anticipate in the plenary that there will be objections by many countries of a late-stage chairman’s text in concept, as well as many spending the limited amount of time working to re-insert language. This has already been observed in the morning Contact Groups where countries have expressed concern about the basis for the Chair’s text and whether progress from informals and inf-infs that haven’t been socialized within CGs will be included.
If you would like to follow along, you can do so at the link. When it goes live, it will be posted in the “Plenaries” drop down as a Day 9. The timing of the plenary is not announced at the time of publication. The daily calendar will be updated when it is scheduled. It is all but inevitable that it will start late. While watching, it is not recommended to operate heavy machinery.
Outlook on rest of week
My father says of our beloved Texas A&M football team, “Aggies never lose, they just run out of time.” Including today, there are only two days left in the process. Though, much like a conference that was supposed to end in 2025 can be extended into the Summer of 2026, a UN Thursday night can last well into Friday. There also continues to be intransigence on topics that countries have said from the out-set are not within scope or unsupportable by critical constituencies. There is a very real possibility that this INC either runs out of time, or loses.
I’m sorry to say the PBMEA has been adjusted downward to “Outlook not good”, bordering on “Little hope.” Is this a narrative strategy to ratchet up dramatic stakes? The only way to find out is to continue following along.
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