Countries urged to ‘hold the line’ in Geneva plastics treaty negotiations

The Thinker’s Burden, a 6-metre tall artwork by the Canadian artist and activist Benjamin Von Wong, has been created for the plastics treaty negotiations and stands in front of the UN offices in Geneva while the talks take place. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

Talks between nations to hammer out a plastics treaty to end plastic pollution continued behind closed doors in Geneva on Thursday, the final day of negotiations, as civil society groups urged countries to “hold the line” to secure a strong agreement.

With time running out to seal a deal between 184 countries, environmental groups expressed concern that frontline communities, Indigenous people and others suffering the worst impacts of the world’s growing plastic crisis were being “sold out” in an effort to secure a treaty, without meaningful or legally binding measures that would address the scale of the problem, “at any cost”.