(Bloomberg) -- The penultimate round of United Nations talks toward a legally binding global treaty on plastic pollution ended in disappointment for countries and environmental groups pushing for limits on production.

The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution concluded a week-long meeting in Ottawa in the early hours of Tuesday morning. While negotiators celebrated signs of progress toward an agreement, advocates expressed dismay that meetings planned for the coming months will not address the creation of new plastic.

Those meetings will take place ahead of the fifth and final session of talks in Busan, South Korea, in late November, before an end-of-year deadline to reach a binding treaty. In Ottawa, negotiators achieved their goals of advancing work on a treaty draft and arranging the intersessional discussions, said Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, executive secretary of the committee. 

“This is multilateralism. We start from very different parts of any spectrum and come together to make a difference in the world,” she said in an interview. “There are differences, but I believe they will be able to bridge them in Busan to come to an agreement.”

Most of the world’s countries agreed in 2022 to kick off talks on ending plastic pollution. The efforts have pitted the so-called “Like-Minded Countries” — oil, gas and petrochemical producers including China, Saudi Arabia and Russia — against a group calling itself the “High Ambition Coalition,” including European Union members, Canada, Mexico and Australia. The former wants to see a treaty that only tracks plastic waste, while the latter wants one that tackles production.

The US, for its part, has avoided joining a negotiating bloc but is unlikely to support production limits. It has argued that countries should take action on single-use plastics and chemicals harmful to public health, but that they should also craft their own national plans on how to reach those goals, rather than having global targets and measures imposed upon them.

A group of Democratic lawmakers including Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley traveled to Ottawa for the talks and called on the US to be more ambitious. “An effective international agreement cannot be achieved through nebulous promises or pledges. We need strong, internationally binding agreements with accountability mechanisms in place,” the congressional delegation said in a joint statement.

Plastic production accounts for 5% of planet-warming emissions and could grow to 20% by 2050, according to a report by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Beyond Petrochemicals campaign. (Bloomberg Philanthropies is the philanthropic organization of Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP.) 

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It was disappointing that members of the high-ambition bloc, including Canada, supported a proposal for intersessionals to proceed without addressing production, said Sarah King, head of plastics and oceans at Greenpeace Canada.

“It’s concerning that the interests of petrochemical plastic and Big Oil will be put before the interests of people and the planet,” she said. “That’s what we’re going to be working on between now and then, to ensure that does not happen.”

Read More: Why the Plastic Problem Needs a Legally Binding Global Treaty

Mathur-Filipp, however, pointed out that the intersessionals are expert meetings, not negotiations. The initial agreement struck in 2022 was to work toward a deal that addressed the full life cycle of plastic, and that language remains in the draft treaty text, she said.

“It’s not only about production caps,” she said. “Different aspects of the life cycle can have the same impact that we are hoping for. For example, if members agree to increase recycled content in future plastic products, then there would likely be some impact on production, too.”

Stewart Harris, spokesperson for the International Council of Chemical Associations, said his group was pleased to see governments agree to further discussions around redesigning plastic products to eliminate waste and pollution, as well as helping developing countries with financing the transition.

“I’m very hopeful,” said Harris, whose group’s members represent about 90% of global chemical sales. “We saw governments moving off of their initial positions and kind of moving toward each other to try to find where can they reach agreement on intersessional work. We’re hoping that that lays the foundation for further areas of agreement.”

Canada’s Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said his country was committed to landing one of the most significant environmental accords since the Paris Agreement. “We are no longer talking about ‘if’ we can get there, but “how,’” he said in a statement.

But Erin Simon, head of plastic waste and business at the World Wildlife Fund, said removing plastic production from the intersessional work reduced the likelihood that it would make it into the final treaty. 

“We see this problem as something that can be solved by a multitude of strategies, not one thing is going to solve it all. That being said, starting with reducing in the simplest form is the more direct route,” she said.

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