12 June 2025 - Behind closed doors, in a domed conference pavilion steps away from the historic port of Nice, more than 40 ministers gathered on Tuesday to tackle one of the planet’s fastest-growing environmental threats: plastic pollution.
Away from the cameras and fanfare of the under way in the coastal French city, they voiced a shared determination to finalize this year a global treaty that could, for the first time, regulate plastics across their entire life cycle.
“There is renewed commitment to conclude the treaty in August,” Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, who attended the meeting and is leading the treaty negotiations, told UN News. “This is too urgent an issue to be left for the future.”
Hosted by Inger Andersen, the head of the UN Environment Programme (), the informal gathering marked a quiet but significant diplomatic moment – a sign that after two years of deliberations, political momentum may finally be catching up with scientific alarm.
With one round of talks remaining – scheduled from August 5 to 14 in Geneva – negotiators are now under pressure to deliver the first legally binding treaty aimed at tackling plastic pollution across production, consumption, and waste.
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