ENVIRONMENTALISTS and indigenous leaders gathered outside the United Nations buildings in Geneva today, demanding that nations agree a treaty on reducing plastic pollution as talks on the subject continued.

The meeting, set to conclude tomorrow, aims to create the first global, legally binding treaty to tackle the problem. 

But efforts to reach agreement have stalled, with powerful oil-producing nations strongly opposed to including the production of plastic in the treaty. Most plastic is made from fossil fuels. 

Protesters from the Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) movement said they wanted their voices heard as negotiations enter their final stage. 

They called for a vote if a consensus could not be reached.

BFFP spokesman Brett Nadrich said: “To date, the process has been broken.

“Civil society leaders from around the world, together with those most impacted, are speaking with a unified voice that we need to show courage, not compromise, and fix the process.”

Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance campaigner Juressa Lee, from New Zealand, said: “We’ve invested a lot into coming all the way to Geneva, away from our communities, away from our families, because we understand how important an issue this is and how crucial a moment this is.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime plastics treaty.”

Panamanian lead delegate Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez cheered them on as he walked by.

“We need that all over the world,” he said. “We need people outside of here to tell their countries to speak up for what it is that they’re standing for. 

“Are they standing for them, their citizens, or big oil?”

The biggest dispute is over whether the treaty should cap new plastic production or focus on design, recycling and reuse. 

Panama is pushing for production limits, with Mr Monterrey Gomez warning that, without them, “there’s no treaty.”