Trade, Climate, and Bali

• Published in: Foreign Policy in Focus p. N_A
• Main Author: Menotti, Victor
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Inter-Hemispheric Resource Center Press 12.12.2007
• Subjects: Climate change; Conferences; Economic policy; Emission standards; Global economy; Kyoto Protocol; Policy making; Proposals; Bali
• ISSN: 1524-1939

The WTO is not a competent venue to determine which technologies are climate friendly, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) already has a mechanism to accelerate transfer. Waiting for results from the finalization of the WTO's Doha Round, which are hung up due in large part to developed country failures to deliver on past promises from the previous round of trade negotiations, is too far off in the distance for adequately dealing with emergency actions needed now. Climate concerns should not be used to give Doha new legitimacy. Moreover, the U.S.-EU breakthrough priorities for a Doha deal have included the opening of markets for energy services companies like Halliburton in countries with large oil ad gas reserves, so any benefits from trade in clean tech would be offset with the WTO's deepening our dependence on fossil fuels. Anyone wishing that the WTO would take up the issue of energy subsidies in its official agenda need only observe how it rules on agriculture subsidies have been developed and applied to see reasons to justify the deep lack of trust among the public and WTO Member Nations. Energy subsidies offer an example where expanding the WTO's mandate, which is almost one-way in its outlook to remove government's role in the economy in order to increase trade, could complicate if not make impossible a final product that actually protects the climate. Governments should cooperate multilaterally to eliminate perverse subsidies for fossil fuels that endanger our climate, but they should be carried out in the appropriate arenas with missions focused on doing so. No decisions or positions taken in Bali should foreclose any policy options for climate protection. The most important contribution trade policy can make to climate protection is to not only safeguard but actively increase the policy space that climate negotiators need to act urgently. Trade Ministers could also declare that whatever is agreed to in Bali won't be subject to WTO complaints.