Despite calls by nearly 100 countries to limit harmful plastic products and chemicals, United Nations negotiations on plastic waste ended Sunday in Busan, South Korea, without consensus on a global treaty.
UN officials said they will convene another round of talks in 2025 in an attempt to salvage efforts to rein in the plastic pollution that is killing marine wildlife, harming human health and warming the planet.
Representatives of several nations and groups involved in the treaty talks expressed disappointment and frustration at the outcome but resolved to build on progress that was made, saying that no deal is better than a bad deal.
“We are not here to accept anything short of an ambitious treaty,” Ghana’s negotiator, Dr. Sam Adu-Kumi, said in a statement.