PLASTICS IN PARIS — U.N. negotiators are descending on Paris for the second round of negotiations around a global plastics treaty. Talks that started Monday and end Friday are aimed at coming up with an agreement by the end of 2024 to do something about plastic waste. The fault lines are pretty clear, as are the areas of agreement, as Leonie Cater and our Jordan Wolman report. What's not clear is if they can find enough common ground to start working on a draft text ahead of the next session. There are three camps, broadly: — The "High Ambition Coalition," led by Norway and Rwanda and including more than 50 countries and the EU, which is pushing for “bans and restrictions” to eliminate “problematic plastics” along with global baselines and targets. — The U.S. and...unclear who else besides the American Chemistry Council, who want individual countries to be allowed to set their own targets. The U.S. doesn't accept the "high-ambition" framing: "I don’t concede on ambition in any way, shape, or form," Monica Medina, who stepped down as the State Department's top environmental negotiator in April, told Jordan earlier this month. "We are just as ambitious." Both the U.S. and the HAC want to end plastic pollution by 2040. — Saudi Arabia, which wants U.S.-style flexibility but also to only be obligated to do things like “providing engineering departments with circularity requirements for components” and agreeing to exchange “best practices in recycling between nations.” High-ambition countries are expressing worry Saudi Arabia will peel off other oil-rich countries that want to keep selling to plastics producers. Environmentalists, meanwhile, are raising concern that chemical recycling will be given a prominent role at the expense of reuse and other policies. They're also complaining that the U.N. is limiting NGO attendance at the conference to one representative per group. There are signs of movement: The United Arab Emirates — the host of this year’s COP28 climate summit — didn't sign the High Ambition Coalition's most recent statement, even though it is a member. But Japan, a major generator of plastic waste, just signed up to the High Ambition Coalition on Friday, Leonie reports. Still, things aren't off to a great start. Negotiations have been stalled for two days over a disagreement on voting procedures, according to an industry representative on the ground. Saudi Arabia, China and India are pushing for a voting procedure that requires consensus, while the EU and U.S. are in favor of a two-thirds threshold. "We're wondering if this week is going to be a wash," said the representative, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely about the sensitive matter.
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