Plastic pollution treaty stalled as Geneva talks end without deal

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -Delegates discussing the world's first legally binding treaty to tackle plastic pollution failed to reach consensus, diplomats said on Friday, voicing disappointment and even rage that the 10-day talks produced no deal.

Delegates had been seeking a breakthrough in the deadlocked United Nations' talks in Geneva, but states pushing for an ambitious treaty said that the latest text released in the early hours of Friday failed to meet their expectations.

French ecology minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said in the talks' closing session that she was "enraged because despite genuine efforts by many, and real progress in discussions, no tangible results have been obtained." 

In an apparent reference to oil-producing nations, Colombia's delegate Haendel Rodriguez said a deal had been "blocked by a small number of states who simply did not want an agreement."

The path forward for the negotiations is uncertain. 

Some countries like Britain said that negotiations should resume but others described a broken process. 

"It is very clear that the current process will not work," South Africa's delegate said.

More than 1,000 delegates have gathered in Geneva for the sixth round of talks, after a meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) in South Korea late last year ended without a deal.

Negotiations had gone into overtime on Thursday as countries scrambled to bridge deep divisions over the extent of future curbs.

Diplomats and climate advocates had warned earlier this month that efforts by the European Union and small island states to cap virgin plastic production - fuelled by petroleum, coal and gas - are threatened by opposition from petrochemical-producing countries and the U.S. under President Donald Trump.

“Of course we cannot hide that it is tragic and deeply disappointing to see some countries trying to block an agreement," said Danish environment minister Magnus Heunicke on behalf of the EU. He said the treaty was necessary to tackle "one of the biggest pollution problems we have on earth" and promised more efforts to reach a deal.

“We will keep on working until we have a treaty that will help us solve the problem,” he told reporters.

The most divisive issues include capping production, managing plastic products and chemicals of concern, and financing to help developing countries implement the treaty.

(Reporting by Emma Farge, Writing by Miranda Murray; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Christian Schmollinger and Tomasz Janowski)