Fifth UN plastics treaty talks mired in division as halfway point approaches

SEOUL (Reuters) - A fifth round of talks aimed at securing an international treaty to curb plastic pollution had seen slow progress as the halfway point approaches, delegates said on Wednesday, fuelling doubts that a deal can be reached by a Dec. 1 deadline.

South Korea is hosting the fifth and final U.N. Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) meeting to yield a legally binding international treaty this week.

Although three of a planned seven days of talks have passed, they have yet to yield an agreed text, and talks on financing to help developing countries implement the treaty had not completed line-by-line negotiations, delegates said on Wednesday.

Petrochemical-producing nations such as Saudi Arabia and China have strongly opposed efforts to target plastic production, over the protests of countries that bear the brunt of plastic pollution such as small island nations and low- and middle-income countries.

"It's very, very clear that countries want this deal," Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, told reporters on Wednesday. "We need to see text on the table tomorrow."

Progress appeared slowest on divisive issues such as plastic production caps and waste management.

In some cases "discussions have taken us back to the situation of prior meetings", a delegate from Colombia said during a stocktaking plenary session on Wednesday, including in "areas where it should be simpler to find areas of convergence" such as plastic waste management.

Many delegates expressed frustration over the slow pace, the multitude of proposals, and disagreements over procedure.

"The frustration is very much procedural," said Eirik Lindebjerg, global plastics policy lead at environmental group World Wide Fund for Nature, saying countries that want an ambitious treaty should not bargain with those slowing down the process.

Some 220 fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists are registered to attend this week's plastics treaty negotiations, outnumbering any other single delegation including South Korea's 140 people, the Center for International Environmental Law said on Wednesday.

Civil society organisations complained on Tuesday their participation in the process was hampered by inadequate arrangements such as limited seating availability for observers.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Jan Harvey)