Advocates pushing for a wider plastics agreement have begun treating commercial pressures as leverage to break through the stalemate in negotiations, even as the treaty's ultimate shape stays unresolved. Those backing a more far-reaching agreement — a bloc they describe as representing somewhere between a fifth and two-fifths of worldwide plastics consumption — are being urged to align their domestic policies and act collectively on purchasing power to broaden the scope of any final deal.
A September report from the World Wildlife Fund laid out a data point that has recurred across multiple regulatory contexts: once a bloc of buyers accounts for roughly 15 to 20 percent of global demand, that concentration has tended to pull entire industries toward compliance — a pattern the organisation traced, among other places, to how the European Union's REACH chemical regulations took hold.
At New York University's 2026 Plastics and Human Health Symposium, Daniela Durán González of the Center for International Environmental Law told attendees that around 100 countries have formally committed to treaty language that would ban or limit chemicals of concern alongside certain plastics, while also working toward a gradual drawdown in overall plastic production — and that the bloc of nations prepared to advance those changes carries enough combined economic weight to reshape the incentives facing manufacturers.
González noted at the September 22–23 gathering that she had served on Colombia's delegation to the plastics negotiations, adding that purchasing power among governments gave them the ability to draw producers into the discussion, though any workable arrangement would need to be one that producers themselves could accept — a dynamic that CIEL contended was on display during informal, closed-door plastics treaty sessions convened in late September at United Nations facilities in Thailand.
Delegations at the national level are expected to convene ahead of the scheduled March resumption of formal negotiations, with the gathering aimed at narrowing points of disagreement between the parties. Negotiators gathered in Geneva in 2025 found themselves at an impasse, with coalitions representing oil-producing and plastics-manufacturing nations pushing for a narrower agreement while opposing delegations pressed for the treaty to address chemical additives in plastics and caps on overall production volumes.
The Centre for International Environmental Law noted in a written release that the Bangkok negotiations drew together country groupings accounting for roughly a quarter of worldwide consumption, with those delegations pressing for more binding treaty wording — and, in the words of the organisation, arriving at the talks prepared to defend and expand upon the positions they had already tabled.
Advocates at the talks argued that coalitions representing over a quarter of worldwide plastics demand had shown readiness to act, with CIEL senior attorney Giulia Carlini noting that this level of collective commitment pointed toward the possibility of genuine market change rather than a lowest-common-denominator outcome. A WWF report released alongside the negotiations outlined a framework under which willing nations could take on binding obligations covering harmful plastic products, using coordinated market rules to draw in broader participation. WWF global policy impact director Efraim Gomez cautioned that an agreement limited to voluntary national measures leaving existing conditions intact would carry little practical weight, and that countries would need to pursue the full range of multilateral avenues to establish enforceable common standards.
The coalition known as the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution — a grouping of over 70 nations led jointly by Norway and Rwanda — accounts for somewhere between roughly one-fifth and one-third of worldwide plastics trade, according to the statement. The statement also noted that the 95 nations which endorsed a 2025 treaty declaration at a United Nations gathering held in Nice, France, collectively account for somewhere between 20 and 28 percent of worldwide demand.
The Nice declaration, according to WWF, put forward a call for a binding agreement covering both production processes and the chemicals and goods involved, with built-in provisions allowing the framework to be made more robust as circumstances evolve.
Plastics output worldwide, the document found, sits within a tighter circle of producers than other industries examined. Roughly 32 percent of global output originates from China, while the United States accounts for 14 percent; India contributes 6 percent, South Korea 5 percent, and Saudi Arabia 4 percent. According to the findings, four nations — Germany, Japan, Brazil, and Thailand — each account for roughly 3 percent of worldwide plastics output.
At an NYU panel discussion, Jennie Romer — who held the deputy assistant administrator role for pollution prevention at the Environmental Protection Agency during the Biden administration and participated in the treaty negotiations as part of the U.S. delegation — described the talks as having lost momentum, outlined a "yes, and" approach as a constructive way for nations to engage with the agreement, acknowledged that participating countries bring widely divergent positions to the table, and framed the central challenge as identifying a minimum framework capable of producing a treaty with enough substance to carry real weight, while noting that multiple paths toward a workable outcome remain available.
Advocacy for reform continues to circulate through the corridors of the UN framework. An avenue exists for a narrower set of nations prepared to advance beyond the current commitments. Other avenues for collaboration remain available and in use. Romer expressed the view that moving forward on all those fronts together — with an affirmative and additive approach — was the right path.
