Countries negotiating the treaty have agreed to meet again in 2025, with issues of production caps, program funding and chemical phaseout lists continuing to serve as hurdles.

During the late-night meeting, countries supportive of legal obligations to cut plastic pollution refused to accept a treaty limited to voluntary measures. The treaty must take action at each stage of a plastic item’s life cycle, they asserted. That includes reducing how much plastic is made.

The meeting was the last stage in a two-year process, after more than 170 nations in March 2022 backed a historic UN resolution to end plastic pollution,

Countries have deadlocked on a United Nations treaty on plastic pollution, according to The Associated Press. The treaty, with an aim of tackling worldwide plastic pollution, faced a hurdle due to

Negotiators aim to reconvene the talks next year. Observers say oil-producing nations led by Saudi Arabia and Russia had frustrated attempts to forge a legally binding deal, while UNEP describes global commitment to ending plastic plastic pollution as “clear and undeniable”.

Delegates from more than 170 countries huddled for a week of marathon negotiations but came up short on delivering a treaty.

Diplomats at a United Nations conference in Busan, South Korea, failed to reach agreement on the world’s first treaty to tackle plastic pollution on Sunday. They said they would reconvene in future months to try again.

Negotiators working on a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution for a week in South Korea won't reach an agreement and plan to resume the talks next year

A summit many hoped would yield a landmark treaty to tackle a global plastic pollution crisis ended in disappointment after oil- and gas-producing countries pushed back on limiting production