Japan’s informal sessions

December 14, 2025

Japan is preparing to convene a series of informal consultations to help break the deadlock in global negotiations on a legally binding treaty to curb plastic pollution, as governments gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, for the seventh session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-7), held from December 8 to December 12, 2025.

Japanese officials said the proposed meetings would aim to bridge differences among negotiating parties and build consensus on key issues that have stalled progress toward a global agreement regulating the production, use, and disposal of plastics.

The treaty is intended to address plastic pollution across its entire life cycle, from upstream production to downstream waste management. Ryo Nakamura, assistant minister and director general for global issues at Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Tokyo has been engaging with both supporters and critics of the treaty to help resolve longstanding disagreements.

Speaking at a UNEA-7 side event titled Bridging Divides, Building Consensus: Towards an Ambitious Global Plastics Treaty on December 11, Nakamura said Japan was considering hosting informal meetings ahead of formal negotiations.

“To accelerate the pace of negotiations, Japan is encouraging small, informal group discussions to help narrow gaps and identify common ground,” he said, while acknowledging that sharp divisions remain. According to Nakamura, a key fault line lies between countries that view plastics primarily as an environmental concern and those that approach the issue largely from an industrial and economic perspective.

Kenya’s Environment Minister Debora Barasa stressed that the treaty must go beyond waste management and tackle the entire plastics value chain, including production, consumption, and circularity.

She said that while six rounds of negotiations have delivered incremental progress, stronger political will is needed to reach an agreement that reflects the scale of the global plastics crisis.

The next round of talks, known as the Third Part of the Fifth Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5.3), is scheduled for February 7, 2026, at the Geneva International Conference Centre. Rwanda’s Environment Minister Bernadette Arakwiye said the session would focus on electing officials to the negotiating committee and mobilising all available resources to narrow differences.