Overview

• With roughly 30 hours left before Thursday’s deadline, ministers rejected the chair’s new draft that stripped article-level production limits and chemical provisions, leaving the treaty stalled.
• Oil-producing states in the Like-Minded Group insist on focusing the treaty on waste management, while the High Ambition Coalition demands binding caps on virgin plastic production and toxic additives.
• Civil society observers point to at least 234 fossil fuel and chemical lobbyists at the talks and are urging delegates to vote on the treaty if consensus procedures continue to block progress.
• The European Union says it will not accept a minimal agreement and ties its support to legally binding measures covering the full plastics lifecycle alongside clear finance and implementation commitments.
• Disagreements over the UN’s strict consensus rule and funding for developing countries risk reducing the treaty to a lowest-common-denominator outcome unless negotiators adopt procedural changes or bold compromises.