(San Francisco, August 6, 2025) – Governments must use the final round of global plastics treaty negotiations to secure strong, enforceable limits on plastic production and protect communities facing the worst harms of plastic pollution, Climate Rights International said today. With talks resuming this week, countries have a critical opportunity to finalize an international agreement that puts public health, human rights, climate action, and environmental protection at its core.

Plastic contributes significantly to the climate crisis, with emissions released at every stage of the plastic lifecycle, from fossil fuel extraction to production, use, and disposal. Despite growing consensus on the need for global action, progress toward a binding agreement has been slowed by opposition from countries with large fossil fuel and petrochemical interests. A strong treaty should confront these challenges directly, including through a cap on production of virgin plastic and addressing the full lifecycle impacts on people and the environment.

Some nations, including many developing countries, have pushed for mandatory limits on plastic production and a rights-based approach to environmental protection. Over 250 companies and financial institutions who are members of the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty have called for a strong and legally binding treaty. Others – including the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and major oil companies such as Shell and Exxon – have attempted to weaken the treaty’s scope by focusing solely on waste management and recycling.

“Some governments still want to treat plastic as a waste management problem, while ignoring the serious human rights and climate impacts of plastic production, use, and disposal,” said Krista Shennum, researcher at Climate Rights International. “Without legally binding limits on plastic production, the global plastics treaty will fail to actually address the plastics crisis, including significant greenhouse gas emissions and threats to the health of communities around the world.”

Despite how common plastic and petrochemicals are in society, their production, use, and disposal can threaten the rights to health, water, food, and a healthy environment. Many chemical additives in plastic products – including phthalates, bisphenol A (BPA), and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – are known to pose serious human health harms, including increased risks of cancer and reproductive system harm. People may be exposed to these substances when plastic is produced, leached into consumer goods, recycled, incinerated, or dumped. Children, pregnant people, women, and older people are particularly vulnerable to plastic-related health impacts.

Alarmingly, plastic pollution has become pervasive in the natural world and the human body. Studies have found microplastics in human blood, lungs, breast milk, and placental tissue. In 2023, researchers confirmed that micro- and nanoplastics crossed the blood-brain barrier, raising serious concerns about long-term health risks. Microplastics have also been detected in Antarctic snow, deep ocean trenches, and remote mountaintops, highlighting the extent to which plastic has infiltrated every corner of the planet.

Plastics also pose a major and growing threat to the climate. Nearly all plastics are made from fossil fuels and their production, transport, and disposal release significant greenhouse gas emissions. According to recent estimates, the lifecycle emissions of plastics could account for nearly 20 percent of the world’s remaining carbon budget by 2050. A treaty that fails to include meaningful limits on production risks locking in decades of additional emissions and undermining global climate goals.

“Plastics don’t disappear, and neither do their consequences,” said Shennum. “They pollute our air, contribute to the climate crisis, and threaten human health and wildlife. If negotiators walk away without a plan to cut plastic production, they’re not solving the problem, they’re signing off on it.”

The push for a global plastics treaty began in 2022, when Parties to the United Nations Environment Assembly agreed to develop an international agreement to address plastic pollution. Since then, five rounds of negotiations have taken place, with countries divided over how ambitious the final agreement should be.

The United States is playing an obstructive role in the negotiations. On August 5 it proposed deleting provisions addressing the full life cycle of plastic and instead embracing an industry-friendly approach.

A strong global plastics treaty would be a significant step forward in addressing the environmental and human rights impacts of plastics, Climate Rights International said.  As negotiations come to a close, countries should seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to adopt a treaty that is ambitious, enforceable, and responsive to the global scale of the plastics crisis.

“The plastic crisis is global, but so is the opportunity to solve it,” said Shennum. “An ambitious treaty won’t just clean up pollution, it will advance human rights, protect the planet, and show what real international cooperation looks like in the face of a shared challenge.”