FITS AND STARTS — ‘Tis the season for major global environmental summits. As delegates prepare to descend on Dubai for international climate talks that could get a boost from warming relations between Washington and Beijing, negotiators working on a U.N.-led plastics treaty are reeling as those talks seem frozen in place.

The third of five planned rounds of talks toward a global plan for tackling plastic pollution ended Sunday with no clear path to whittling down draft text. Negotiators appear to be no closer to ironing out differences over critical issues such as financing, universal obligations, single-use plastics, chemical content and production limits.

The goal of finalizing a deal by the end of 2024 has always been viewed as an ambitious one. And a new coalition of countries including Saudi Arabia, Russia, China and Iran has only complicated the political dynamics.

“What’s frustrating about it is that it was the voices of a few that really derailed it for many,” said Erin Simon, the World Wide Fund for Nature’s head of plastic waste and business, who was in Kenya for the latest round of negotiations. “We didn’t see the political will to overcome those few voices, and we really needed to.”

With no mandate to pen a first treaty draft before the next round of talks in April, significant movement on key issues will be needed for there to be any hope of striking a deal by the end of next year.

“Absent a major course correction, Canada will host a polite but massive failure when talks resume in Ottawa next year,” Carroll Muffett, president of the Center for Environmental Law, said in a statement.

As battle lines are drawn, the role of the U.S. is coming into clearer view. The European Union is part of the High-Ambition Coalition, which is calling for production cuts, while China is arguing that any kind of restriction on plastics exceeds the mandate of the treaty.

The U.S. wants each country to “take measures to reduce demand for primary plastic polymers that present a demonstrated risk of concern to human health or the environment,” putting the country in the position to serve as mediator.

“There was a benefit to the United States not being in the HAC,” a State Department official said in an interview before the talks in Nairobi, nodding to the diplomatic value of not aligning with some of the more far-reaching proposals.

Of course, it remains to be seen what any middle ground here actually looks like within the new political boundaries established by countries like China and Russia. EU members and others in the High-Ambition Coalition may end up being forced to decide whether a treaty that falls short of what they want is better than no treaty at all.

More than 100 countries support global bans and phase-outs of the most harmful and avoidable plastics, and 140 countries want to establish global binding rules as opposed to a treaty-based solely on voluntary actions, according to WWF. Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), along with Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) want the U.S. to align more with that view, calling for a stronger approach in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

If nothing else, countries’ cards are now on the table. We’ll see how they are played in April, when the tick of the clock will be much louder.

SIGNAL CASH — A $35 million Department of Energy program to buy carbon removal has industry advocates optimistic that the purchases could give an implicit stamp of approval to certain types of projects, potentially helping the sector scale, Allison reports.

DOE’s intention isn’t to set regulations, but rather to evaluate carbon removal methods and measurement tools “and then select what we think will give us the best shot at delivering high-quality carbon removal in the near term,” said Noah Deich, deputy assistant secretary for the agency’s Office of Carbon Management. He does, however, see how the government’s investment could be positive for prospective investors.

“For any corporate that’s looking to buy with the intent that we have, which is having these really, really bulletproof carbon removal credits, I think it will be a great model to emulate,” Deich said. “And then collectively with all of our carbon removal innovation work, there will be a signal throughout about what we think is good.”

The Energy Department’s program comes at a time when the broader voluntary carbon market has been grappling with concerns over the quality of many of its carbon credits, particularly those that focus on avoided emissions. By the government stepping in and choosing what types of carbon removal to invest in, it could serve as an indicator of what the U.S. thinks is solid removal.

“The standards that they set will have repercussions for a long period of time,” said Giana Amador, executive director of the Carbon Removal Alliance, a group representing companies trying to build the industry. “If DOE funds projects that aren’t rigorous and robust and up to a high standard of quality, I think there’s sort of a reputational risk that taxpayer funding is going to low-quality projects.”

Applications for the first phase of funding are due mid-December.

COP COUNTDOWN — This year’s U.N. climate summit will take place under the banner of a green backlash and a Beijing-Washington divide despite the recent thawing between the world’s two biggest economies. Oh, and by the way, forget 2 degrees Celsius of warming — we’re on track to hit 3 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels, Benjamin Storrow reports for POLITICO’s E&E News.

Those are the conditions climate negotiators will need to confront in Dubai starting next week as they discuss ways to deal with climate change and hammer out a financing mechanism for nations most vulnerable to its catastrophic impacts.

Meanwhile, the backlash against green policies is continuing across the U.S. and causing a rethink of climate goals in Europe. And there’s the possibility some countries will use the climate summit to talk Middle East diplomacy. And looming over it all is a possible return of Donald Trump to the White House, Karl Mathiesen, Charlie Cooper and Zack Colman report.

“Volatility doesn’t usually help raise ambition,” said Kalee Kreider, president of the Ridgely Walsh public affairs consultancy and a former adviser to Vice President Al Gore.

Per usual, most eyes will be on whether and how the U.S. and China can navigate their differences and find common ground on climate action, Sara Schonhardt and Zack report. That’s especially true now coming out of last week’s Biden-Xi meeting and the nations’ recently announced deal to limit pollution.

EU STRIKES BACK — European lawmakers reached a landmark deal on legislation designed to spur domestic manufacturing of green technologies and serve as a counter to the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act.

The Net-Zero Industry Act aims to get the EU to produce 40 percent of its own clean technology by 2030 and also includes a goal for the bloc to produce 25 percent of the world’s clean technology by that time. That element gives the legislation a sense of global ambition while also guarding against overreliance on Chinese supply chains.

“That’s good news for the climate, it’s good news for the European economy and it’s a clear answer to the Americans,” said Christian Ehler, a German MEP from the center-right European People’s Party who led the negotiations.

Lawmakers agreed to cast a wider net for qualifying technologies than what was originally proposed, including nuclear. Now, Parliament will begin negotiations with the Commission and Council as the legislators aim to wrap it all up by March, Federica Di Sario reports.

GAME ON — Welcome to the Long Game, where we tell you about the latest on efforts to shape our future. Join us every Tuesday as we keep you in the loop on the world of sustainability.

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— A Swedish startup backed by BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and Volkswagen is touting new battery technology that could reduce dependence on China, the Financial Times reports.

— Reuters, meanwhile, is reporting that giant batteries used to backstop intermittent renewable energy sources are leading developers to scrap plans for gas-fired power plants.

— An Oxfam report on pollution linked to the world’s wealthiest people found that the top 1 percent produce as much as the poorest two-thirds of the population. The Washington Post has that.