TRUMP BUMP — Donald Trump might prove to be just the boost needed to propel talks over a global plastics treaty to the finish line. The prospect of the former president's return to the White House next year is boosting the level of urgency around United Nations negotiations aimed at clinching a deal by the end of this year to significantly cut plastic pollution by 2040, Jordan reports. The heightened concern around the future of international environmental diplomacy comes at a critical juncture in the treaty talks — which have proceeded sluggishly so far — with countries set to gather in Ottawa later this month for the penultimate negotiating session. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), who will be traveling to Canada as part of a congressional delegation to push for an ambitious treaty, said it's reasonable to think the upcoming U.S. election will have a positive impact on the discussions. “Certainly, in the unthinkable scenario of a second Trump presidency, we’re going to get nowhere on plastics,” Huffman said in an interview. “That’s one reason to be motivated. A more positive and hopeful reason to be motivated is that this is a great opportunity for the Biden administration to show young voters that they get it.” Worries about what Trump might do aren’t necessarily overblown, said Mario Loyola, a Heritage Foundation senior research fellow who served under Trump as associate director of regulatory reform at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Trump would take a “hard-nosed look” at any treaty that emerged from the talks and would be “skeptical that the agreement reached was the best agreement that could have been reached,” Loyola said. The Trump campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment. Even if negotiators agree on final text this year, a Trump victory could shift how the U.S. implements the agreement and diminish political will to ratify it in the Senate, which doesn't have the greatest reputation for following through on international agreements regardless of who occupies the White House. A spokesperson for Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s minister for environment and climate change, said that “changes within democracies can play a role in shifting the position of a country in these negotiations.” And the election is certainly “in people’s minds,” said a negotiator from a member of the High Ambition Coalition, a group of 65 countries working to include a provision limiting plastic production. With a historic rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden all but certain, some advocates unhappy with the Biden administration’s negotiating positions to date are using the looming election to put pressure on the State Department and raise the profile of their plastics policy demands. “It's the most leverage we're going to have,” said Frankie Orona, executive director of the Society of Native Nations, who met with the State Department last month and will be in Ottawa for the plastics talks. “You need to show us progress before you ask us to come in and give you some votes.”
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