Know better. Do better.

It's been a rough few months for international negotiators. The biodiversity COP16 in Cali, Colombia, ended without a deal, a climate denier regained the White House, and COP29 in Baku squeezed out a disappointing new climate finance goal. Some poor souls represented their countries in both Colombia and Azerbaijan.

The events have set quite the stage for this week's talks on plastic pollution. Taking place in the South Korean city of Busan, it is the fifth and theoretically final stage of U.N. negotiations for a global treaty on plastic pollution - catchily named INC-5.

Everyone knows plastic is a problem, but the scale is staggering.

From marine life in the middle of the ocean to people living in cities, very few parts of the world are unaffected. Up to 1 million people are estimated to die each year in developing nations because of diseases like diarrhoea and cancer related to plastics and other waste.

Host country South Korea's plastic waste generation more than doubled from 5.8 million tonnes in 2014 to 12.6 million in 2022. Officially, 73% was "recycled", but Greenpeace says that figure is 27%. Around the world, only 9% of plastic waste is recycled.

So, what should countries do? The good news is that lots of the policies to reduce plastic pollution are well-known. But deciding who should take responsibility, and how, is another question.

It doesn't take a genius to know that a major solution for plastic pollution is to produce less of the stuff. Producing plastic not only leads to pollution, but causes about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Getting the backing of major petrochemical-producing countries like Saudi Arabia and China could be a major sticking point. The United States has backed caps on plastic production, but that could change after Donald Trump becomes president in January.

Another issue at stake is how to hold companies to account. As my colleague Mariejo Ramos reported in the Philippines, a growing number of nations in Southeast Asia are imposing rules on extended producer responsibility (EPR) which hold firms accountable for their plastic's entire lifecycle.

The latest draft, which 175 countries will be wrangling over in Busan, includes a levy on plastic producers to help meet the costs of ending plastic pollution, as well as a call for governments to introduce EPR schemes.

How much bite the final treaty has, and whether it gets over the line, remains to be seen.

See you next week,

Jack