The long-running battle to clinch a new global trade deal does not bode well for the possibly even more complex negotiations to be launched at next week’s climate change conference in Copenhagen.
Ministers and officials of the 153-member World Trade Organization (WTO) were concluding three days of talks Wednesday in Geneva with the tortuous negotiations over the trade round poised to enter a ninth year amid concerns that reaching a trade deal could be delayed again or even abandoned.
The faltering Doha trade round’s uncertain prospects came despite the expressions of support at the Geneva summit from WTO member states for forging ahead with an agreement to meet the 2010 deadline set by world leaders.
But since the latest trade round was launched in Doha in 2001, several key trading issues have changed including the growing political importance of climate change with several top officials from the world’s leading trading blocs seeking to link trade and the environment at this week’s WTO meeting.
“Trade policy can make a significant contribution, through the liberalization of trade in relevant environmental goods and services,” outgoing European Union (EU) Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton told the WTO conference’s opening session. Ashton this week become the EU top diplomat.
To an extent, however, the intense round of preparations for next week’s Copenhagen climate summit have overshadowed this week’s meeting of WTO ministers in Geneva, which was called to review the work of the trade group.
The struggle to try to head off failure in Copenhagen combined with the enormity of the task involved in signing off on a new trade deal has helped to push the Doha round down the list of priorities in the major political capitals around the world.
Similar to the trade negotiations when the world leaders gather in the Danish capital next Monday for the launch of the climate change summit it will also follow a marathon round of talks on global warming.
There have been no less than 15 key conferences held under the auspices of the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change since it was established following the so-called Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
But as is the case with the negotiations on greenhouse gas emissions, the push to secure a multinational trade deal have exposed deep rifts between rich and poor nations.
Indeed, bridging the differences between the advanced economies and the poorer developing world represents a crucial step if both a climate change agreement and a trade accord are to be reached.
The deadlocked global talks have been hit by a series of missed deadlines as poor nations have pressed rich countries to open up their markets to products such as agricultural goods.
Meanwhile, advanced economies have argued that the developing world should open their markets to allow more foreign investment.
In the struggle over reaching a climate change accord the world’s leading developing nations such as China and India have called on rich countries to step up action to deal with global warming including big cuts in their emissions.
However, many rich states want developing nations to wind back their use of fossil fuels.
“The entire issue of global climate change has been brought about by sustained production by the major industrialized states,” Indian Minister for Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma told a press conference in Geneva Wednesday.
“So it is expected that they take measures in a coordinated way with developing nations,” Sharma said.
But in a sign of the growing recognition of the link between trade and the environment, officials from the world’s most advanced economies called in Geneva this week for an early deal on the liberalization of trade in so-called green goods and services.
Echoing the views of the US and Europe, Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Masayuki Naoshima told the WTO conference: “Some like-minded nations, including Japan, are considering conducting discussions with a view to achieving an early agreement to liberalize trade in environmental goods.”
