By Simone Galimberti*
KATHMANDU, Nepal | 19 August 2025 (IDN) — As of 15 August, those hoping for a strong binding plastic pollution treaty were hugely disappointed by the outcome that emerged from Geneva, where the previous round of intergovernmental negotiations, formally known as INC. 5.2 took place from August 5-14, 2025.
Nevertheless, for a moment, let us imagine that, instead, the opposite result had materialised.
At the end of lengthy discussions, finally, the international community had risen to the occasion and decided on strict actions to curb plastic production and chemicals of concern.
In such a scenario, after the initial euphoria and excitement, activists and even the most ambitious governments behind what would be a historical achievement would have to face the reality.
Even in the best conceivable cases, any strong agreement would have led to further years of negotiations about essential details, including discussions over the financial mechanisms supporting developing nations and other issues like reporting and evaluation of governments’ supposedly binding commitments.
A Quandary for Developing Nations
In practice, this would mean that developing nations that have fought a very long battle to achieve their desired outcome would have to wait for more protracted negotiations. As we know from the challenges in the climate-related conferences of parties, COP, centred on implementing the Paris Agreement, the devil is in the details.
It might take years to reach watered-down compromises on financial mechanisms, and in another interlinked and highly contested area like the remediation of plastic pollution. In the end, even if last Friday the INC 5.2 negotiations had ended up with a strong agreement, in the short and medium term, business as usual would have continued, especially in the global South.
This situation represents a quandary for developing nations, a real dilemma difficult to solve.
It is highly probable that a developing nation pursuing social and environmental justice by supporting a strong treaty with curbs on the production of plastic and phase-out of chemicals of concern, will continue to co-exist with cheap and harmful plastics on a massive scale.
The South’s Stakes in the Plastic Industry
Because even in the South of the world, there is a plastic industry sector that has clear economic stakes in deciding how fast or how slow a transition towards a less plastic-centric society would unfold.
The case of Nepal is emblematic, where, over the last few years, the central and local governments had imposed bans on single-use plastics and yet such prohibitions were never enforced.
The consequences are visible to anyone, as plastics remain pervasive and omnipresent, a defining feature of both urban and rural lives.
This reality represents a contradiction: developing nations claiming environmental justice at the international level, yet struggling to rein in their plastic production.
At the same time, indeed, a strong treaty with a strong financial mechanism to support developing nations in eliminating harmful and avoidable plastics could offer the right incentives for turning the page and setting the foundations for a less plastic-centred economy and ways of living.
But can humanity afford years of future tough negotiations with uncertain outcomes when the most likely scenario would probably not be ambitious enough? It is time to be ready for a Plan B or even a Plan C.
The first would see forcing a majority decision within the current negotiations held within the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA).
Strong Partnership between the Global South and the Global North
Legally speaking, it is possible to implement, even if it would require a powerful partnership between the Global South and the Global North. Such a common strategy would harness something unique to the plastic negotiations.
Unlike the climate negotiations, industrialised nations, led by the EU and developing nations, have converged towards a common and united goal of curbing plastic production, including eliminating plastics with harmful chemicals.
Many of these nations even share a common platform, the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution, currently co-led by Norway and Rwanda, with the latter having taken a bold stand since the beginning of the formal negotiations in 2022.
Instead of battling out against each other, this united front should define a shared work plan.
Within the African bloc and the Small Islands Developing Nations group, there is still an appetite for another round of formal negotiations within the current framework.
An understanding must be reached that, if this were the case, returning to the UEA-led process, a majority voting option should be pursued at any cost because, in no way, will petro states and the USA change their positions.
Indeed, they will not shift this year and certainly not in any foreseeable scenario.
But at the same time, a joint strategy based on current negotiation modality would also require an even more audacious Plan C: going solo.
In practice, this means forging an ambitious plan without those who, over the last 3 years, have been very effective at blocking any progress towards the treaty humanity needs.
The “Going Solo” approach would ostracise petro states, and its details should be hammered out even while working to pursue Plan B, the majority voting.
The reason is simple: a third option should be ready because the so-called low-ambition nations, so keen to achieve a plastic waste treaty, would do everything in their capacity to derail a majority vote.
South-North Coalition with a Pioneering Funding
While sketching out the details for the “Majority Vote” option and the “Going Solo”, it is equally paramount that this South-North coalition comes up with a pioneering funding plan anchored to a strong delivery mechanism.
This is going to involve complex negotiations that might prove to be difficult even among countries that so far have been working together to pursue a planet less dominated by plastics.
Discussions on financial arrangements have been a torn issue in the current system of negotiating a treaty and remain a tricky topic to settle.
Will the global North in the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution be able to rise to the challenge, negotiate in good faith and show real solidarity with their counterpart in the Global South?
Considering how the New Green Deal within the EU has been under attack in recent months and was slowly but relentlessly weakened, we are in uncertain territory.
There is nothing, now, that would guarantee that developed nations that have put up an intense fight for an ambitious plastic pollution treaty would follow through with bold funding propositions.
Yet there is only one certainty: humanity will only see deep curbs on plastic production and the elimination of the most hazardous chemicals if the global South and the global North work together.
The Role of Civil Society Organisations
Civil society organisations from both sides could offer two things to help these two groups stick together for the long run:
First, they can offer the glue needed to stitch ambitious proposals, even divergent views, between the two groups.
Civil society could prepare bold proposals to reach the final destination of having an aspiring, legally binding agreement, no matter the absence of petro states and their peers.
Activists could then strongly pitch these ideas to their governments in a synchronised and coordinated fashion.
Both Plan B, the “Majority Voting” option and Plan C, the “Going Solo” option and any discussion on funding mechanisms, will require a tremendous amount of effort to be agreed upon.
But civil society should also offer another element: hope.
Because when the parties from the Global South and Global North disagree and hit a wall, only hope can remind them of their immense responsibility towards humanity and planet Earth.
Hope is indeed what is required to believe that only an imaginary scenario could become reality relatively soon.
*Simone Galimberti writes about the SDGs, youth-centred policymaking and a stronger and better United Nations. [IDN-InDepthNews]
Image credit: Tom Fisk. Source: Global Government Forum
