Global Plastics Treaty: Initial Considerations for INC-2

In March 2022, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) adopted resolution 5/14 titled “End Plastic Pollution: Towards an International Legally Binding Instrument.”

The resolution convenes an intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC) to develop a new global agreement combatting plastic pollution, otherwise referred to as the global plastics treaty (GPT). At it’s first meeting (INC-1) in Uruguay, negotiators requested the production of an Options for Elements paper to guide discussions at INC-2, which will be help in Paris from 29 May to 2 June. The aim is to reach agreement by the end of 2024 with three more rounds of negotiations, ideally with significant intersessional work, and to open the agreement for adoption in 2025.

In this briefing we provide some key considerations for negotiators going into INC-2 and reflections on the Options for Elements paper (previous briefing in this series can be found here).