Luis Vayas Valdivieso, chair of the International Negotiating Committee at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on August 5, 2025. SALVATORE DI NOLFI / AP
The 184 countries gathering to forge a landmark treaty on combating plastic pollution were told on Tuesday, August 5, that they must find a way to tackle a global crisis wrecking ecosystems and trashing the oceans. States should seize the chance to shape history, the man chairing the talks said as 10 days of negotiations kicked off at the United Nations in Geneva.
"We are facing a global crisis," Ecuadorian diplomat Luis Vayas Valdivieso told the more than 1,800 negotiators as they prepared to thrash out their differences in the search for common ground. "Plastic pollution is damaging ecosystems, polluting our oceans and rivers, threatening biodiversity, harming human health and unfairly impacting the most vulnerable," he said. "The urgency is real, the evidence is clear – and the responsibility is on us."
Plastic pollution is so ubiquitous that microplastics have been found on the highest mountain peaks, in the deepest ocean trench and scattered throughout almost every part of the human body. But after five rounds of talks, three years of negotiations hit the wall in Busan, South Korea, in December when oil-producing states blocked a consensus.
