Today, governments resumed meetings of contact groups 1 – 4, which remained open to observers. Certain articles were moved to closed informal sessions, and we expect this will continue tomorrow and likely the rest of the week in both “informals” and “informal informals”. Additional detailed notes from the contact group sessions are available for the PLG.

On the margins of the meeting, we continued to meet with governments bilaterally. A few key insights:

• Governments remain far apart on Articles 3 (plastic products), 6 (supply), and 11 (finance).
• Elements of convergence are emerging on Article 5 (product design), yet even there substantive differences remain.
• Governments have yet to align on elements of the new instrument’s governing procedures. This could create challenges in the future implementation of the agreement. In particular, industry participation could be challenged and decision making for the COP could be driven by a voting majority vs. consensus. We are continuing to engage on this topic.
• Process issues continue to limit the ability of governments to make meaningful progress. Moving more contact groups to informal negotiations may unlock some of these issues.

Governments have a goal of sending agreed text to Plenary on Saturday so that the language can begin to be sent to the Legal Drafting Group for review, before coming back to governments for final approval at the end of the meeting. Given the status of the negotiations, we anticipate some issues will still need negotiation after the stocktaking Plenary.