Competing axes of power in the global plastics treaty: Understanding the politics of progress and setbacks in negotiating a high-ambition agreement
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Headlines in December 2024 proclaimed the “collapse” and “failure” of United Nations plastics treaty negotiations in Busan, South Korea. This is, however, an overly simplistic and pessimistic portrayal. Progress on less contentious issues was made, and the meeting was adjourned with a commitment to continue negotiating in 2025 on the basis of the “Chair’s text.” Significantly, at the closing plenary, a majority of states voiced support for a “high-ambition” treaty covering the full life cycle of plastics, drawing clear red lines on the necessity of legally binding measures to phase out hazardous plastics, regulate chemicals in plastics, and finance just transitions. Delegates from developing countries such as Rwanda, Panama, and Mexico were especially steadfast in demanding an “ambitious” treaty to end plastic pollution, including in marine ecosystems. Yet there were also setbacks, as multiple, intersecting axes of pro-plastics power – comprising loose alliances of petrostates and business interests profiting from rising plastics production – sought to thwart high-ambition obligations. Industry actors lobbied against stringent commitments and endeavored to narrow the treaty’s scope to downstream waste management. Petrostates such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, stalled discussions and bracketed high-ambition text. Divisions between developing and developed countries also emerged over the appropriate financing mechanism. Despite this turbulence, achieving a strong treaty remains possible. But this will require strengthening the high-ambition axis of power, enhancing transparency and accountability, and ensuring the meaningful inclusion of rights holders, local communities, and civil society.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.031 | 0.023 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.023 | 0.066 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.038 | 0.039 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.019 |
| Research integrity | 0.014 | 0.022 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.010 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".