UN Plastic Treaty talks showed billions of people back a cap on plastic
The collapse of UN plastic treaty negotiations in Geneva last night might feel like a devastating blow to our collective environmental future. Negotiators working on a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution won't reach an agreement in Geneva today (Friday) as they failed to in South Korea last year. But before we surrender to despair, we must recognise what this moment truly represents: not failure, but the inevitable friction that comes when transformative change confronts entrenched interests.
As someone who has worked as a lobbyist for good for the past decade I never expected to see all nations of the world agree to a global cap on plastic production. There are just far too many countries in which such a cap would be a massive threat to their economies.
But what has been achieved over the past three years of these talks is we have now found who supports a cap. More than 100 nations support legally binding plastic production limits and phase-out dates. This coalition includes the 27 member states of the European Union and other European allies, the United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland, Canada, 39 small island developing states, and large numbers of African and Latin American nations. This isn't a fringe movement—it represents billions of people who recognise that our plastic crisis cannot be solved without addressing production at its source.
The countries opposing caps led by Saudi Arabia and including Russia, China, Iran and the US, want a voluntary treaty focused on waste management, especially recycling. These nations, whose economies are fundamentally built on extracting and processing fossil fuels—the raw material for 99% of plastic—were never going to willingly sign away one of their primary revenue streams. In a world where cars are turning electric plastic is the fossil fuel industry’s back up plan.
Expecting Saudi Arabia or Kuwait to enthusiastically support a cap on plastic production is rather like expecting a tobacconist to champion smoking bans.
The exponential growth of production and consumption of plastics in recent decades has created vast industrial ecosystems with powerful lobbying arms and deep pockets.
Transformative environmental action has always faced fierce opposition from those who profit from the status quo. The coal industry fought climate science, the chemical industry resisted the Montreal Protocol on ozone depletion, and the tobacco industry spent decades denying health impacts. Opposition is not evidence of wrongheaded policy—it's proof that we're threatening business models that prioritise short-term profits over long-term planetary health.
One hundred countries supporting binding production caps represents unprecedented global support for addressing plastic pollution at its source.
The path forward lies not in dismay, but in pragmatic coalition-building. These 100+ nations should now explore what meaningful action looks like outside the UN framework. Regional agreements, bilateral partnerships, and sectoral initiatives could create the momentum that eventually brings reluctant nations to the table. The EU's own plastic policies, California's progressive environmental standards, and similar regional leadership have historically created market pressures that spread globally.
Consider the precedent of climate action. When international negotiations stalled, cities, states, and businesses stepped forward with their own commitments. The result wasn't perfect global consensus, but substantial progress that created economic incentives for broader participation. The same approach could work for plastic production caps—ambitious nations implementing their own standards, creating supply chain pressures, and demonstrating economic viability.
The urgency remains real. Under a business-as-usual scenario and in the absence of urgent action and necessary interventions, global plastic waste could almost triple, reaching around 1.2 billion tonnes by 2060. But urgency shouldn't breed panic or paralysis. It should fuel strategic action by those ready to lead.
The lesson from Geneva isn't that global environmental cooperation is impossible—it's that meaningful change requires building unstoppable coalitions of the willing whilst economic and political pressures gradually shift the calculations of the reluctant. The 100 countries supporting plastic production caps now have their homework: demonstrate that ambitious environmental action and economic prosperity can coexist, create market incentives for global participation, and prove that the future belongs to those who act decisively rather than those who obstruct.
Yesterday's failure in Geneva was not the end of the story—it was merely the end of the opening chapter. The real work begins now.
John Higginson is Editor-in-Chief of Comment Central, Chief Executive of Higginson Strategy and a former national newspaper political editor.
