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GENEVA: Countries trying to break the deadlock and strike a landmark global treaty on combating plastic pollution negotiated through the night into Friday on a last-minute revised proposal.
The new draft, issued by the talks chair after the original Thursday deadline passed, contains more than 100 unresolved passages of text — but constitutes an “acceptable basis for negotiation,” two sources from different governments told AFP.
However, several environmental NGOs said the new text still did not go far enough to protect human health and the environment.
After three years of negotiations, nations wanting bold action to turn the tide on plastic garbage were trying to build last-minute bridges with a group driven by oil-producing states.
Talks chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso issued his revised draft text after countries from all corners brutally shredded his previous version issued Wednesday, plunging the talks into disarray.
The Ecuadoran diplomat spent Thursday in frantic negotiation with multiple regional groups, resulting in a new text that went some way toward appeasing both major blocs.
The High Ambition Coalition, which includes the European Union, Britain and Canada, and many African and Latin American countries, wants to see language on reducing plastic production and the phasing out of toxic chemicals used in plastics.
A cluster of mostly oil-producing states calling themselves the Like-Minded Group — including ������Ƶ, Kuwait, Russia, Iran, and Malaysia — want the treaty to focus primarily on waste management.
The new text “is far from what is needed to end plastic pollution,” however, “it can be the springboard to get there, if we sharpen it in a next round,” Panama’s negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey said.
A diplomatic source from another country told AFP it was an “acceptable basis for negotiation.”
A total of 185 countries have been negotiating since August 5 at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. Five previous rounds of talks over three years failed to land a treaty.
One country’s chief negotiator told AFP the new draft felt “more balanced text — not too bad but not too good either. At least it feels like the chair is listening. But many of us are asking what’s going to be the next steps.”
As for whether there was much movement from the Like-Minded Group, the negotiator said: “Nothing. It’s the same...I’m not so sure if there’s momentum.”
The plastic pollution problem is so ubiquitous that microplastics have been found on the highest mountain peaks, in the deepest ocean trench and scattered throughout almost every part of the human body.
On current trends, annual production of fossil-fuel-based plastics will nearly triple by 2060 to 1.2 billion tons, while waste will exceed one billion tons, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
With 15 million tons of plastic dumped in the ocean every minute, French President Emmanuel Macron asked: “What are we waiting for to act?“
“I urge all states gathered in Geneva to adopt an agreement that truly meets the scale of this environmental and public health emergency,” he posted on X.
“We need to have a coherent global treaty. We can’t do it on our own,” said Environment Minister Deborah Barasa of Kenya, a member of the High Ambition Coalition seeking aggressive action on plastic waste.
Barasa told AFP that nations could strike a treaty now, then work out some of the finer details down the line.
“We need to come to a middle ground,” she said.
IPEN, a global network aimed at limiting toxic chemicals, said the level of ambition in the new draft text “cannot become the new normal for these negotiations.”
And the World Wide Fund for Nature told AFP: “Efforts to pull together a treaty that all parties will accept has amounted to a text so compromised, so inconsequential, it cannot hope to tackle the crisis in any meaningful way.”

On March 12, 2015, while commissioning in Mauritius the gleaming Offshore Patrol Vessel Barracuda — built in Garden Reach, Kolkata, to Mauritian specifications — Prime Minister Narendra Modi outlined India’s policy toward the Indian Ocean Region.

The IOR policy was titled “SAGAR – Security and Growth for All in the Region,” by the prime minister.

The Indian Ocean, he pointed out, was critical to the world, bearing two-thirds of its oil shipments, one third of its bulk cargo and half of its container traffic. The 40 states that are on its littoral host nearly 40 percent of the world’s population.

The SAGAR policy emphasizes five aspects, the first being ensuring the safety and security of the Indian mainland and island territories, and a safe, secure and stable IOR.

The second is to deepen economic and security cooperation with friends in the IOR particularly maritime neighbors and island states through capacity building, collective action and cooperation.

The third is to seek a more integrated and cooperative future toward sustainable development for all. And the fourth increased maritime engagement in the IOR as the primary responsibility for its stability and prosperity of those living in the region.

If SAGAR was the external outreach of India, in the national context it was complemented by the Sagarmala port-led development initiative.

For long, India has been criticized for its continental bias, that it was focused on its northern and northwest frontiers to the neglect of its vast maritime interests. However, this has been changing.

Since the launch of its Look East policy in 1992, which evolved into the proactive Act East policy in 2015, India has reclaimed its maritime legacy. Modi recently released a special coin commemorating 1,000 years of Emperor Rajendra Chola’s naval achievements.

The Indian navy has been at the forefront of maritime diplomacy through capacity building initiatives, joint exercises, plurilateral conferences, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and search and rescue activities.

The 2004 Tsunami established India’s credentials in disaster relief operations. India came to be recognized as the first responder and net security provider in the IOR, particularly to states in its neighborhood.

India’s prompt assistance to Myanmar in the aftermath of the devastating Cyclone Nargis in 2008, and being the first country to deliver drinking water to the Maldives after a freshwater crisis in that country in 2014 consolidated that image.

In March, 2025 India mounted a huge relief-and-rescue Operation Brahma to earthquake-hit Myanmar.

“If SAGAR is the sea, then MAHASAGAR denotes ‘ocean’ in Hindi and several other Indian languages.”

Suchitra Durai

India has now graduated to becoming a preferred security partner in the Indo-Pacific region forming defense partnerships that not only include joint exercises and capacity building but also exports of equipment either as a grant or under a Line of Credit at the request of the partner state.

Trilateral maritime security cooperation with Sri Lanka and Maldives which began in 2011, has extended to other Indian Ocean states. This includes Mauritius and Bangladesh with Seychelles as observer under the Colombo Security Conclave that now has a charter and secretariat in Colombo.

The Indian Ocean Naval Symposium which began as an initiative of the Indian navy in 2008 is an inclusive platform to discuss maritime issues and to work out effective response mechanisms.

The symposium has 25 participating countries from South Asia, West Asia, Africa, southeast Asia and European countries with Indian Ocean territories as well as nine observers and a rotating chair (India will take over as chair, at the end of 2025).

MILAN, as it is known, is a biennial multinational exercise hosted by the Indian navy in harmony with the nation’s vision of SAGAR and its Act East policy.

A crucial facet of maritime security is enhanced domain awareness.

Toward this, India has also been pursuing white shipping agreements with several countries, with 22 concluded. And established a state-of-the-art Information Fusion Centre in Gurugram that facilitates sharing of maritime information among member states.

India has a long history of development partnerships going back to the period prior to its independence.

Its approach to development partnerships has been shaped by its independence struggle, solidarity with other colonized and developing countries, and the inspiring leadership of Mahatma Gandhi who declared that “my patriotism includes the good of mankind in general.”

India has therefore been sharing its developmental experiences and technical expertise in a spirit of Vasudhaivakutumbakam (the ancient belief that the World is One Family).

As Modi stated in his address to the Ugandan Parliament in 2018: “Our developmental partnership will be guided by your priorities, it will be on terms that will be comfortable for you, that will liberate your potential and not constrain your future.”

The Indian model of developmental cooperation is comprehensive and involves multiple instruments including grant-in-aid, concessional lines of credit, capacity building and technical assistance. Above all, it is unconditional, transparent, sustainable and financially viable.

In June 2018 at the Shangri La conference, Modi outlined India’s Indo-Pacific vision. For India, the Indo-Pacific stands for a free, open, inclusive region that “embraces us all in a common pursuit of progress and prosperity.”

He emphasized the centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a rules-based order, freedom of navigation, unimpeded commerce and peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with international law.

There is great synergy between the Indian approach and the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific.

In November 2019 at the East Asia Summit in Bangkok, India launched the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, a coherent initiative comprising seven pillars of practical cooperation built on the SAGAR vision.

India’s active participation in the QUAD (Australia, India, Japan and the US) is part of our Indo-Pacific vision. Earlier, in 2014, India established the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation, a strategic initiative for strengthening diplomatic and economic engagement with islands in the Pacific Ocean.

It was in 2023, during India’s presidency of the G20, whose leitmotif was inclusivity, that the African Union was invited to join the grouping. India’s presidency, inter alia, revived multilateralism, amplified the voice of the Global South and championed development. India has hosted three editions of the Voice of the Global South Summit since then.

Ten years after SAGAR, during an official visit to Mauritius in 2025, Modi announced the MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions), an updated doctrine.

If SAGAR is the sea, then MAHASAGAR denotes “ocean” in Hindi and several other Indian languages. MAHASAGAR marks a strategic evolution from a regional focus on the Indian Ocean to a global maritime vision, with particular emphasis on the global south.

Modi’s recent engagements with Mauritius, Maldives, Trinidad and Tobago, Ghana and now the Philippines are aligned with the MAHASAGAR vision.

• Suchitra Durai is India’s former ambassador to Thailand.