UN Ocean Conference 2025: Greenpeace USA and Surfrider Foundation slam draft treaty

The UN Ocean Conference (UNOC 3) 2025 begins today in Nice, France. Under the theme “Accelerating action and mobilising all actors to conserve and sustainably use the ocean,” the conference aims to promote urgent and expanded ocean protection efforts, as outlined in the UN draft declaration. However, global NGOs Greenpeace and the Surfrider Foundation Europe argue that the draft falls short of adequately addressing plastic production.

“The UNOC 3 draft declaration does not address the need for reducing plastic production,” Kate Melges, senior plastics campaigner at Greenpeace USA, tells Packaging Insights. 

“The current text lacks an explicit reference to the need to reduce plastic production.”

“Although there is a brief mention in the text of the development of an internationally binding instrument on plastic, it makes no mention of the need to reduce production, which was present in earlier drafts.”

She adds that the packaging industry is “a significant contributor to the plastic pollution crisis we face.”

“As we’ve seen over the last five years with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Global Plastics Pact, voluntary commitments are not enough. We need a legally binding agreement to address this global crisis with a globally coordinated solution.”

Meanwhile, Lisa Pastor, advocacy officer at the Surfrider Foundation Europe, tells us that she expects to see the packaging and plastic industry play a role in the UNOC 3 and to be “particularly active in the conference green and blue zone through the presentation of fake solutions.”

“However, NGOs will be strongly mobilized to ensure fake solutions don’t overshadow the real problem.”

The UNOC 3 draft declaration

Kate Melges, senior plastics campaigner at Greenpeace USA.The UNOC 3 draft declaration published last month outlines 34 points to to support the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development. 

Only point 15 explicitly mentions plastic, stating that: “We remain concerned by the high and rapidly increasing levels of plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, and its negative impacts on the environment and ecosystems and the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development.”

Melges says: “Greenpeace would like to see an explicit reference to the need to reduce plastic production to address the plastic pollution crisis sufficiently.”

“We need a comprehensive, legally binding global instrument that creates a unifying regulatory environment, as history has demonstrated that piecemeal, fragmented frameworks won’t work.”

UNOC 3 link to the Global Plastics Treaty

Greenpeace USA’s Melges explains that the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal is currently the only global, legally binding instrument that, since 2019, specifically addresses plastic waste.

However, she notes that the US has not ratified it and that it is insufficient to address the full lifecycle of the plastic pollution crisis.

Lisa Pastor, advocacy officer at Surfrider Foundation.“To hold corporations accountable and protect environmental justice, the world needs a much stronger and more comprehensive international agreement. Luckily, countries are currently in the final stages of negotiating the world’s first Global Plastics Treaty, which is our best shot at a once-in-a-generation opportunity to solve plastic pollution,” says Melges. 

“For this treaty to meet the scope and scale of the plastic pollution crisis, it must create binding global rules that apply to all countries rather than a voluntary global agreement where governments can choose whether or not to take action.”

Surfrider’s Pastor adds: “UNOC 3 is taking place just two months before the next round of negotiations of the Global Plastics Treaty and represents a critical opportunity to ratchet up the ambition. Countries are called to reiterate their commitments for an effective and ambitious Plastics Treaty that includes the objective of reduction of global plastics production.”

Criticism of the packaging industry 

Pastor elaborates on her criticism of the plastics and packaging industries, highlighting ongoing issues related to producer responsibility, material impact, and pollution.

“In the EU, the EPR obligations introduced by the Single-Use Plastics Directive were seen as important provisions and a first step. However, over the years, the full potential of EPR has not yet been reached, and producers are insufficiently held accountable for the environmental damages they cause. It is paramount that the Global Plastics Treaty includes a harmonized definition of EPR.”

Discussing Surfrider’s work to collect plastic pollution data, Pastor says: “Most plastics collected are plastic fragments, which make it very difficult to track. However, studies have been able to identify in the Mediterranean the country in which some of these products had been consumed thanks to waste collection data.”

On the increased packaging industry interest in biodegradable polymers, she argues that “bioplastics are emerging but when we take a closer look, their impact sometimes seems limited or even counter-productive.”

“They may distract us from achieving our goals and ending plastic pollution. Bio-based plastics are just as problematic as ‘conventional’ plastics, as they still contain oil (up to 75% for some of them). The most effective solution is still to curb production at its source.”

Labor practices

NGOs are demanding country governments to collaborate on ending plastic pollution.Another issue with the UNOC 3 draft declaration, according to Greenpeace USA, is the removal of a “human rights-based approach to protecting the oceans,” which Melges says undermines accountability.

“There is no guarantee that policies will protect the rights of those most dependent on — and essential to — ocean stewardship. This weakens the foundation for just, inclusive, and effective marine protection and must be urgently addressed,” she argues.

“Furthermore, failure to explicitly mention key issues such as labor practices and human rights abuses in distant water fishing fleets or ensuring the protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems from the impact of destructive fishing practices — crucial issues that are fundamental to global marine conservation — sends a dangerous signal that states currently lack the ambition necessary to address the crisis facing the oceans.”

Pastor adds: “Surfrider Foundation Europe will be particularly mobilized to alert us to the triple crisis we are facing. Instead of a siloed approach, UNOC 3 offers the chance to adopt a global, and holistic approach to preserve the Ocean and address all these crises through biodiversity-positive solutions, policy ambition, and political will. NGOs are mobilized but this is not a standalone action — countries must also get on board to end plastic pollution.”