Geneva: Global efforts are ramping up in Geneva this week as delegates from around the world gather to finalize a landmark international agreement aimed at ending the plastic pollution crisis.
The talks, led by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), are part of a historic push to curb the staggering rise in plastic waste and its devastating impact on human health, marine life, and the global economy have started today in Switzerland ( scheduled to take place from 5 to 14 August 2025).
The negotiations stem from a 2022 decision by UN Member States to develop a “legally binding” treaty to tackle plastic pollution, with a goal of concluding the agreement within two years. As the deadline approaches, the urgency is clear: unless swift action is taken, UNEP warns that plastic waste could triple by 2060.
“The scale of the plastic crisis is enormous and growing,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. “We are seeing the consequences in our oceans, on our beaches, and in our bodies. This treaty must mark a turning point.”
Supporters of a deal have compared it to the 2015 Paris Climate Accord in terms of its significance. They have also pointed to the pressure allegedly being brought to bear against a deal by petrostates, whose crude oil and natural gas industries provide the raw material for plastics production.
“We will not recycle our way out of the plastic pollution crisis: we need a systemic transformation to achieve the transition to a circular economy,” UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen has insisted.
Aim of the Conference
The aim of the deal is for it to encompass the full life cycle of plastics, from design to production and disposal “to promote plastic circularity and prevent leakage of plastics in the environment also know as the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC).
At 22 pages, the INC document contains 32 draft articles which will be discussed line by line. The text is designed to shape the future instrument and will serve as a starting point for negotiations.
For 10 days from 5-14 August, delegations from 179 countries are due to pore over the INC text as they meet at UN Geneva, alongside more than 1,900 other participants from 618 observer organizations including scientists, environmentalists and industry representatives.
A key aim of the meeting is to share tried and tested ways of reducing plastic use such as non-plastic substitutes and other safer alternatives.
Ahead of the talks in Geneva, the respected medical journal The Lancet published a warning that the materials used in plastics cause extensive disease “at every stage of the plastics life cycle and at every stage of human life”.
According to more than two dozen health experts cited in the journal, infants and young children are particularly vulnerable. “Plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognized danger to human and planetary health” and are responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding $1·5 trillion annually”, it noted.
Leading the talks in Geneva is Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (or the INC) on Plastic Pollution, and Head of the INC Secretariat.
“In 2024 alone, humanity was projected to consume over 500 million tonnes of plastic. Of this, 399 million tonnes will become waste,” she said.
Latest forecasts indicate that plastic leakage into the environment will grow 50 per cent by 2040. “The cost of damages from plastic pollution could rise as high as a cumulative $281 trillion between 2016 and 2040,” she maintained.
