Earth Today | Small islands bat for transparent, inclusive process for global plastics treaty
Published:Thursday | August 14, 2025 | 12:06 AM
SMALL ISLAND states have raised a red flag over progress at part two to the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-5.2) while affirming their list of needs for a successful outcome.
“Progress remains far too slow. We came here to conclude this process – to deliver an effective and equitable agreement that meets the mandate established three years ago. Our people expect no less: an agreement that ends plastic pollution, protects our precious marine environment, and transforms the way we produce and consume plastic so the problem does not worsen,” said Ilana Seid, ambassador and permanent representative of the Republic of Palau and Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in an August 8 statement.
“Yet, we have been caught in a web of informals upon informals – uncounted, uncontrolled, and stretching our small delegations to the breaking point. Inconsistent modalities, untimely communication, and procedural irregularities have made it increasingly difficult to work efficiently,” she added.
Those challenges, she noted, led to inaccuracies in the assembled text circulated last week.
At the same time, the chair of AOSIS – which has represents the interests of 39 small island and low-lying coastal developing states in international climate change and sustainable development negotiations – SIDS need attention to not only preventing and reducing plastic pollution in the marine environment, but also to removing “what is already choking our oceans”.
“This requires agreed obligations, both within and beyond national jurisdiction, means and mechanisms for cooperation, and the necessary financing to make clean-up a reality,” she explained.
Also required is financing and capacity building, taking into consideration the vulnerabilities of SIDS.
“Our special circumstances must be operationalised – not just as words in a preamble, but through equitable and effective access to funds and means of implementation that allow SIDS’ full and effective participation. This agreement must provide new and additional funding to build sustained capacity,” Seid insisted.
“SIDS are supportive of all developing countries being able to access finance; however, we can only accept a treaty which includes an undiluted, particular treatment for access for SIDS and LDCs (least developed countries). Plastic pollution in the marine environment cuts to the heart of SIDS’ vulnerabilities,” she added.
“We can only accept a treaty in which we see ourselves – one that offers an equitable pathway for SIDS to address plastic pollution and fully recognises our special circumstances, both in the principles of the agreement and in its operative provisions,” Seid said further.
With the meeting scheduled to end today (August 14) in Geneva, the AOSIS chair said SIDS refuse to stand by while “our future is bartered away in a stalemate of ‘you first—no, you first’.”
“This dangerous brinkmanship – pitting finance against obligations – has a real price: a dying ocean, collapsing biodiversity, and an ever-growing burden on those least responsible for this crisis. And we call on all parties to work together and bridge divides so we can move forward,” she said.
While reaffirming the trust in the management of the process and the commitment to seeing it through, Seid insisted that “trust must be matched with transparency, open communication, and consistent modes of work”.
“It must also guarantee that SIDS are present and represented in all convenings, including small informal groups convened by Members or the Chair. We are here to work. This is a collective call for trust, for cooperation, and for focus,” she insisted.
INC-5.2 is intended to put the final full stop on an approved text of agreement and to “forward it for consideration and adoption at a future Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries”, according to information from the United Nations Environment Programme.
The UNEP Executive Director is the convener of the INC, in line with a UN Environment Assembly Resolution, adopted in March 2022, which stipulated that the INC develop the instrument “based on a comprehensive approach that addresses the full life cycle of plastic, including its production, design, and disposal”.
Inger Andersen, executive director of the UNEP, has herself championed the need for a successfully arrived at binding instrument.
“Plastic pollution is already in nature, in our oceans and even in our bodies. If we continue as on this trajectory, the whole world will be drowning in plastic pollution – with massive consequences for our planetary, economic and human health,” she noted in an August 5 UNEP release.
“But this does not have to be our future. Together, we can solve this challenge. Agreeing a treaty text is the first step to beating plastic pollution for everyone, everywhere,” she added.