The new UN plastic treaty is going backwards, experts say

A year after talks on a global plastics treaty collapsed in Geneva, diplomats met informally in Nairobi to shape a new reference document, and the Guardian reports that experts who track the negotiations see less ambition, not more. The latest text looks much like last year's draft but with more of it in square brackets, the negotiators' mark of disagreement, especially around limits on production, chemicals, and health protections.

Health language is where the retreat is starkest. A researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine counted only nine mentions of human health in the substantive articles, seven of them bracketed, meaning they could vanish in further rounds. An attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law put the frustration plainly: science and reality, he said, are not adjusting to the geopolitical mood.

The process chair, Chile's ambassador to the United Nations, described the document as an informal, evolving reference and praised members' continued engagement. But with heavy industry lobbying in the background and a treaty that critics say risks covering only environmental harms while leaving out the health toll of plastics, from microplastic contamination to chemical exposure, the road to a binding agreement still looks long.