BUSAN, Nov 30 (AFP): Diplomats warned Saturday that a majority of countries could walk away from talks on the world's first plastic pollution agreement if a handful of delegations continue resisting calls to compromise.
Nearly 200 countries are in South Korea's Busan for negotiations on a deal to curb plastic pollution.
But efforts to reach the landmark agreement are locked over several key sticking points, particularly reducing production and phasing out chemicals believed or known to harm human health.
Over 100 countries back those measures, and insist a treaty without them will fail to solve the pollution crisis.
But around a dozen nations-mostly producers of plastic precursors derived from fossil fuels-are strongly opposed.
As a result, just a day before talks are supposed to end, the draft text remains full of opposing views and contradictory language. And frustration is growing.
"The overwhelming majority of delegates here demand an ambitious treaty," said Panama's delegation head Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez. "If the reduction of production is not there, there is no treaty." "We cannot let a few loud voices derail the process," he added.
A diplomat from the High Ambition Coalition, which groups dozens of countries seeking a strong deal, echoed that sentiment.
"We are a large group uniting around key effective elements, and getting ready to walk away," he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door deliberations.
He warned that "some countries" were actively considering calling a vote, which would circumvent the UN's traditional approach of agreement by consensus and could "raise a lot of eyebrows."
It was a possibility being increasingly discussed as a "last resort," said the Democratic Republic of Congo's J.M. Bope Bope Lapwong.
"I think that if we can't reach an agreement, we'll be obliged to go to a vote. We cannot come all this way, all these kilometres, to fail," he told AFP.
