Credit: Getty Images.

An international summit in Geneva, Switzerland, convened to address global plastics pollution, ended in failure last week. It was a summit at which the United States had taken a decisive role — in blocking any limits on plastics production.

The meeting was a perverse reminder of our enduring power on the world stage — as a decision maker, a major consumer and a giant of industry — and of the reach of the Trump administration’s positions on climate and fossil fuels to shape policy far beyond our borders.

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The United States has blown off most other international environmental meetings and accords (President Donald J. Trump, you may recall, pulled us out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, for a second time, on Inauguration Day) but was an eager participant in the plastics summit. Joined by other oil-producing nations — most plastics are made from fossil fuels, after all — we urged other countries to reject caps on the production of new plastics and opposed a ban on chemical additives. Consensus on a deal was, as

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