Injustice is unsustainable

"Injustice is unsustainable." These words, voiced by Pakistan's Federal Minister for Climate Change in the negotiating halls of the United Nations, capture the essence of a struggle far greater than treaties and texts. In the hallowed halls of diplomacy, where the fate of fragile ecosystems is bartered and debated, that struggle comes sharply into focus. The negotiations for a United Nations treaty to end plastic pollution have become more than a policy discussion; they are a litmus test of global justice, a mirror reflecting the inequities between the world's affluent consumers and its vulnerable guardians. At the heart of this conflict lies a philosophical divide, a silent war between two visions of the future: one content to manage the symptoms of ecological decline, and another daring to imagine the radical healing of Earth.

The numbers tell the story with brutal clarity. While the average citizen of Western Europe consumes 150 kilograms of plastic each year, a Pakistani uses only 7 kilograms. This disparity is not merely a measure of lifestyle; it is a moral calculus, a reckoning of responsibility. Those who have profited most from the plastic economy have quietly exported its darkest costs, shipping difficult-to-process waste across oceans to lands already straining under poverty. There, in the communities of the Global South, this imported refuse finds its resting place — choking rivers, smouldering in toxic fires, and leaching poison into soil and water.

Into this arena steps Pakistan, not with a plea, but with principle. Its proposal for an Extended Consumer Responsibility framework is a bold reimagining of global accountability. It insists that responsibility must flow downstream with the waste itself, and that the financial burden of addressing the crisis must be borne by those whose consumption fuelled it. This is not a request for aid but a demand for restitution — a global fund financed by the world's highest consumers to build recycling facilities and waste management systems where they are most needed.

Alongside this vision of structural justice, Pakistan has also advanced a more pragmatic instrument: the plastic credit market. Modelled after carbon credits, it transforms waste management into a tradable unit, a currency to mobilise private capital for recycling and collection. Each credit, valued today between $140 and $670 per ton, represents an attempt at tangible action — a potential bridge between urgent needs and long-term solutions.

Yet this is where peril lies. Plastic credits risk becoming the siren song of weak sustainability, a sophisticated absolution that allows corporations to buy a clean conscience while continuing to produce virgin plastic at scale. A credit note for a ton of trash collected is a poor substitute for a ton of plastic that was never produced. Without clear rules and binding limits, such schemes could create the illusion of progress while the Earth drowns in waste.

This tension embodies the debate between weak and strong sustainability. Weak sustainability clings to the illusion that rivers, forests and ecosystems can be replaced by technology or finance. Strong sustainability, by contrast, recognises the sacred: that some natural assets are irreplaceable, demanding reverence and restraint within planetary boundaries. The Geneva negotiations mirror this divide: Rwanda and Norway pressing for production caps in the spirit of strong sustainability, while petro-states and industry lobbyists prefer voluntary measures dressed as weak sustainability.

The true path forward is not to discard one tool for the other, but to weave them together in a tapestry of justice. The foundation must be the unyielding principle of reduction — a global decline in the production of new plastics, enforced with binding commitments. Upon this foundation, a carefully regulated credit system may function as a bridge, provided it is anchored in transparency and equity. Every credit must represent genuine progress, and every dollar must reach the marginalised waste pickers and communities who, for decades, have been the unrecognised custodians of the world's refuse.

This is the challenge before the international community: to forge a treaty that does not simply manage decline but fosters renewal. It is a chance to abandon the old order of sacrifice zones and silent suffering, and to embrace a new paradigm of ecological respect and shared responsibility.

For Pakistan, this is not an abstract negotiation but a fight for survival. Its children breathe the smoke of burning plastics, its fishermen pull up nets filled with bottles, and its rivers carry poisons it did not create. To ignore this injustice is to condemn millions to a toxic inheritance. To address it with fairness is to chart a new course for humanity, one where wealth is measured not by consumption, but by courage — the courage to care.