Is India Resisting Global Regulations on Plastic?

New Delhi: The fourth session of the negotiations to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution concluded in Ottawa earlier this year. While countries like Peru and Rwanda took the lead in proposing plans for drastic cuts in the production of plastics, India along with other petrochemical-producing countries attempted to limit the scope of what is being envisioned as a global treaty.

India and countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and China, labelled as a “like-minded group”, showed significant resistance against any measures that would deal with plastic production, as their economies depend on fossil fuels and their derivatives. The Indian delegation repeatedly emphasised the crucial role the plastics industry plays in the economies of developing countries and how phasing it out would have far-reaching social and economic implications.

For its objection to any restrictions on the building blocks of plastic, its claims on plastic pollution that have been contested by several established scientific studies, its constant but fractured invocations of “sovereignty” in assigning responsibility and its bickering over minor textual changes, the Indian delegation’s stance has come under severe criticism.

Experts believe that India’s stance does not bode well for a global treaty with any meaningful implications. India’s demands on several counts, even if met halfway, would eventually create such an open-ended and diluted mechanism that it would have a negligible impact on the entire lifecycle of plastics.

Why a global treaty

Plastic production increased nearly 230-fold from about two million tonnes in the 1950s to 460 million tonnes in 2019. It is expected to grow to 34 billion tonnes by 2050. Increasingly, the world has realised the need to curtail plastic not just because of its adverse effects on human health and the environment, but due to its link to the oil and gas industry – over 99% of chemicals used for producing plastics are derived from fossil fuels.

When burnt for energy generation, plastic releases as many greenhouse gases as its source material. On the other hand, globally, only 9% of plastic gets recycled. Interestingly, these are the two solutions offered by many countries, including India, to offset the indiscriminate use of plastics.

But recent research has established that recycling and reuse as forms of waste management can never be enough to contain plastic pollution. Consequently, environmental activists and organisations across the world believe that the responsibility of mitigating plastic pollution should be shared by the producers of plastics.

However, compared to the international discussions on climate, where there is plenty of discourse on cutting down fossil fuels, there is far less unanimity on reducing plastic production.

The current negotiation sessions are being held under the aegis of an intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC) that began work in 2022. The INC was a direct outcome of 175 countries of the UN Environment Assembly voting to adopt a global treaty by the end of 2024 that will address plastic through its entire lifecycle – production, usage and disposal.

Also read: India’s Huge Thrust on Petrochemicals Belies its Tall Talk on Sustainable Energy

Why the focus on polymers

“There must not be any cap/binding target for the reduction or phase-out on the production of plastic polymers,” read India’s submission at INC 4. A polymer is a chain of molecules, either naturally occurring or human-made. Plastics are made from synthetic polymers that are derived from petrochemicals.

The Indian delegation’s stance is that multiple sectors of our economy rely on plastics and some of them are irreplaceable – such as those used in heart transplants and the airline industry.

Haren Sanghavi, a member of the All India Plastic Manufacturers Association (AIPMA), which was also part of INC 4, said that any attempt to put curbs on the plastic polymer industry would have a cascading effect that would hit the most vulnerable first.

“There will be a big loss to the shelf life of food products in the absence of plastics. Since all other forms of packaging are more expensive … it will increase product costs, which will hit the common man’s pocket first,” he told The Wire.

Cuba, Algeria, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, the UAE, Iraq, Venezuela, Russia and a few other countries also opposed the global reduction targets regarding plastic polymers. They argued that such curbs were beyond the treaty’s mandate – the treaty was meant to target “pollution” and not the existence of plastic.

They wanted to limit focus to just “problematic or avoidable plastics” that have no utility other than their primary function and are damaging to the environment, such as short-lived and one-time-use plastics. The argument was that if problematic plastics are tackled, then the polymers used to make them will anyway be eliminated. In India’s view, it has already taken the step to stop those types of plastics by banning single-use plastics.

Additionally, all these countries, including India, said that any attempts to impose restrictive measures on the petrochemical and gas-chemical industries were “unacceptable” since “no plastic pollution is generated at this stage of the production value chain”.

But the latest study by the US National Laboratory stated the opposite, as it showed that about 75% of greenhouse gas emissions from plastics happened even before the production of polymers.

In addition, several studies, such as as the Grid Arendal study, and the inputs of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty and the International Science Council, noted that it would be extremely difficult to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of capping global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius if there are no reductions in the production of primary plastic polymers, which are the basic components that make up plastic.

So, Peru and Rwanda took a different view and presented a proposal for intersessional work, expert meetings in between official INC sessions, on primary plastic polymers to reduce 40% of the global use of primary plastic polymers by 2040.

About 28 countries, including some European and southeast Asian countries, as well as small island developing states (SIDS), launched the Bridge to Busan Declaration on Plastic Polymers to rally parties in support of keeping the provision for addressing primary plastic polymers alive in the treaty text. Bigger developed countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, however, did not back the ambitious call.

Experts believe that if plastic production is unregulated, all efforts at INC 4 would be wasted as the treaty would be diluted and would not tackle the “entire lifecycle of plastics”. It will be limited to downstream measures like the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) – a policy that makes producers responsible for their products, including at the post-consumer stage, and waste management.

Why is India against upstream measures?

For oil and gas majors, the petrochemical industry has become their next big source of revenue due to a fall in demand for fossil fuels resulting from global climate targets and big investments in clean energy. India is eyeing the next phase of its growth through plastic production.

Plastic accounts for more than 60% of total petrochemicals produced in India. The petrochemical industry in India is booming and is expected to contribute to 9% of the country’s GDP. The government even offers subsidies to encourage increased investment, production and export in the plastics sector due to its contribution to the economy.

Satyarupa Shekhar, a public policy advocate against plastic, explained that India has built a massive number of refineries in recent years. With a fall in demand for fossil fuels, this immense refining capacity would go to waste unless production is shifted to plastics.

“Using the refineries to produce petrochemicals that can be exported becomes a lucrative market. The US and Europe get a lot of plastic like coating materials and additives from India,” said Shekhar.

Those who agree with India’s stance rationalise that in the event of restrictions on production, India would have to resort to imports to meet its basic needs of plastic consumption, drawing it away from self-sufficiency. So, it was not surprising to them that India was vocal regarding regulations on plastic.

“Elimination or even reduction in plastics trade may impact developing countries and livelihoods associated with it,” the country said.

India argued that the provisions of a global treaty on plastics that regulated upstream measures could conflict with the Marrakesh Agreement. The agreement established that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) would ensure that developing countries secure a share in the growth in international trade.

But similar to India’s argument on plastic polymers, there is a contradiction here, too. The WTO’s informal dialogue on plastic pollution, held in February 2024, recognised the INCs as the leading process to address the entire lifecycle of plastics. About 78 countries participated in the February conference and set out plans to implement 220 trade measures tackling bans on various types of plastics, import licences and quotas on plastic wastes, etc. India did not even take part in the process.

Common but differentiated responsibility (CBDR)

The idea of CBDR was first introduced in the Rio Declaration in 1992 and refers to the differing capabilities and responsibilities of individual countries in addressing climate change. In simpler terms, it means that developed countries have historically caused more environmental degradation and should do more for its mitigation compared to developing countries.

Taking a leaf from CBDR, India and some other larger developing countries (or middle- or upper middle-income countries) invoked “sovereignty”. India’s submission at INC 4 said that “any consideration for phase out or phase down must be nationally driven. It has to take into account the availability, accessibility and affordability of sustainable alternatives.”

Meanwhile, countries from the Africa group, SIDS and EU demanded global measures and mechanisms tackling a wide range of activities in the plastic life cycle.

Hiten Bheda, chairman of the environment committee at the AIPMA, explained that unlike smaller countries, who are mostly consumers of plastic, India is a major producer and consumer. “It is definitely a valid ask to safeguard the self-interest of different countries based on their respective economic position,” he said on behalf of AIPMA.

The United States also supported the idea of countries having their own national action plans because it believed that they would be able to “identify and address sources of plastic pollution in ways that are most suited to their national circumstances”. The country was criticised for its efforts to keep the treaty open, which would have otherwise involved conversations around possible common criteria for all parties to adhere to.

Swati Singh Sambyal, an international circular economy expert, said that this was just a tactic used by countries to have flexibility and not be bound by global targets. She questioned the efficacy, and even need, for a global treaty if every decision on plastics was based on a national scenario.

“In many cases, consideration of national scenarios doesn’t make sense. Many countries do not have any guidelines around EPR. They treat the concept as voluntary. Plastic waste management cannot also be restricted to the nation as it is a transboundary problem,” she said.

But even with the CBDR approach there was no consensus. While some developing countries backed CBDR to get ample time to mobilise resources – for environmentally sound plastic substitutes, legacy plastic waste and its existing emissions – India’s stance included chemicals, polymers and even the design of plastic.

Sanghavi of the AIPMA said that “for [the] sustainable design of plastics, India must assure that they [will] formulate policies where plastics with recyclability/reuse can be produced without restrictions”.

India argued that plastics had been introduced in the country only after developed countries started producing them. Therefore, the task of reducing their use should also begin with the developed nations. Once these technologies become affordable and equipped for adoption on a mass scale, then developing countries can start the process.

Some experts stated that the excessive use of the CBDR approach in the negotiation implied that countries were trying to find loopholes to pollute more. Others believed that the demand for the wealthier countries to shoulder a proportionately greater burden in solving the problem and providing financial and technical support to developing countries was valid.

Also read: As Govt Ban on Single Use Plastics Comes Into Effect, A Look at the Many Challenges in Its Way

Voting mechanism and vague language

Swati Seshadri, director of research and team lead (oil and gas) at the Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA), believed that India’s text negotiation suggested it was making efforts to keep the treaty’s language vague. For instance, India insisted on minuscule changes, such as by suggesting using the phrase “all party” instead of “each party”.

The watering down of text and adding countless bracketed words and sentences – reflecting language that was not yet agreed upon – to lower the ambitions of the treaty was raised as a concern by international environmental organisations as well.

In total, negotiators added all the options they had for inclusion in the revised draft treaty in the form of 3,686 text brackets, which might be impossible to resolve before the scheduled fifth and final session.

In terms of finalising the treaty, India had been emphasising a consensus-based approach instead of voting. “Unless each and every member is on board, we risk making the agreement ineffective,” said Naresh Pal Gangwar, joint secretary in the environment ministry, who is representing India at the plenary.

Experts believe that full consensus on the treaty would never be possible and that India was only reiterating this because it knew it would lose if decisions were taken through a three-fourths majority.

“There is precedence that the consensus-based approach has been misused in other multilateral environmental agreements where countries with economic interests in producing a pollutant have used veto power to delay the reflection of text in the agreement and thus delayed actions,” Siddharth Ghanshyam Singh, programme manager at the Centre for Science and Environment, told The Wire.

Some believe if there are elements India does not agree with, like the proposals to reduce the production of primary polymers, then India might not sign, leading to a weakened treaty.

“In any case, even if India and some other handful [of] countries continue to produce plastic, it won’t be great for them as they will only have each other to sell to as the rest of the world is becoming environmentally conscious,” said the CFA’s Seshadri.

Despite some progress made in INC 4 regarding the constitution of the Intersessional Working Group, environmentalists are unsatisfied with the negotiations. Environmental organisations like Greenpeace believe that the petro-states have succeeded in diverting all attention to the financial mechanism behind the treaty and the means of implementing the treaty when there is no clarity on what is being implemented through the treaty.

There were fears about fossil fuels lobbyists influencing negotiations as they dominated the event. As per an analysis by the Center for International Environmental Law, nearly 200 fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists registered for the negotiations. At least 20 are from India.

Singh said there has been an increasing trend of industry representatives attending INC meetings in the garb of civil society organisations that are ultimately either funded by or affiliated to the petrochemical and plastic industry. In some cases, the industry representatives were a part of member-state delegations, exhibiting serious conflicts of interest.

“I would say it was pseudo-progress. The inability of oil, gas and plastic-producing countries to shift from their perspective is the biggest challenge,” Singh added.

Apart from the petro-states, and nations like India, it was the United States that came in for major criticism for its passive response. It is the biggest architect of plastic expansion and exerts an outsized influence over these international climate negotiations.

Critics argued that though the country was not actively opposing policies that could drive big cuts in plastic production and waste, it was showing “no action or ambition whatsoever”.

There are now high expectations from the upcoming fifth round of negotiations in Busan, in South Korea, to be held from November 25 to December 1 this year. UN Environment Programme officials believe “the work is far from over” as there are only a few months left before the end-of-year deadline.

Sukriti Vats is a writing fellow with Land Conflict Watch, an independent network of researchers that carries out research on land and natural resources.