Foreword
The linkages between trade and environment are both complex and diverse. While trade has enabled the rapid development of technological advances to help governments achieve their environmental goals, the deployment of those innovations is not always financially accessible or produced at the scale needed to address urgent challenges. As a result, nations face persistent obstacles to tackling environmental degradation in all of its forms. From water pollution to the depletion of fish stocks, deforestation to biodiversity loss, and soil contamination to desertification, the path to a sustainable future often appears bleak.
But hope remains, as new tools to combat environmental degradation and climate change emerge around the world. These include the growth of environmental goods and services that are being used to address some of the most pressing environmental threats. While access may not be as widespread as governments wish, the key constraints, such as a lack of investment or financing, the inability to take advantage of economies of scale, information gaps, and government interventions that distort market signals, are well understood. The range of activity on trade and environmental issues is vast and continually growing. At the national, regional, and multilateral level governments are adopting various instruments that use trade as a tool for climate adaptation and sustainable development, as well as environmental cooperation. For example, governments are developing new policies and regulations that target deforestation, provide subsidies to advance specific environmental goals, and create cross-national carbon reduction strategies. Trade agreements are also being employed to broaden the reach of environmental legislation and to coordinate regulatory approaches. Multilateral Environmental Agreements have also adopted trade measures as a way to address global environmental challenges, such as the transboundary movement of hazardous waste. And, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has also made strides to advance the trade and environment agenda, including through the successful negotiation of new rules on harmful fisheries subsidies, the first WTO deal that is explicitly linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
But there is still much more that could be done, and trade could play an even greater role in the global fight against environmental degradation and climate change if governments are willing to seize the opportunity. For example, they could negotiate new rules to facilitate trade in environmental technologies and services, such as wastewater treatment, renewable energy, recycling, and air pollution control. Governments could also take action to foster transparency in the area of subsidies and industrial policy to support data-driven analysis of the costs and benefits of particular interventions and to aid in the coordination of similar efforts. In addition, efforts to support developing countries, especially the least developed among them, to ensure technological access and to develop their own capacities, are essential to the attainment of global environmental goals. Rules and resources should therefore be responsive to global inequities that inhibit environmental progress.
Since the signing of the Marrakesh Agreement, WTO members have recognized the important linkage between trade and the environment, and committed to “the optimal use of the world’s resources in accordance with the objective of sustainable development, seeking both to protect and preserve the environment and to enhance the means for doing so in a manner consistent with their respective needs and concerns at different levels of economic development.” Environmental sustainability is a goal that remains deeply embedded in the multilateral trading system, but greening that system has not been an easy task. One obstacle seems to be a reluctance to engage in the creation of new rules, particularly on the part of developing countries, with some fearing hidden protectionism in the environmental agenda. Others worry that stringent new rules would preclude their economic development by limiting their ability to pursue development strategies that wealthier countries benefited from in the past, such as the use of fossil fuels. Striking the right balance will undoubtedly 5 be a challenge, and the WTO has a critical role to play here.
One way the WTO has addressed many of these concerns is by allowing countries interested in advancing the trade and environment agenda to make progress through plurilateral discussions as well as dialogues that include the entire membership. Examples include the Informal Dialogue on Plastics Pollution and Environmentally Sustainable Plastics Trade and the broader Trade and Environmental Sustainability Structured Discussions (TESSD) that complement the efforts of the Trade and Environment Committee, among other working groups. By 2016, a group of countries made significant progress towards negotiations on an Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA), which later stalled. Rather than a failure, this should be seen as an opportunity to build on the existing groundwork and restart talks to increase the global availability and affordability of environmental goods and services.
For the third year in a row, the TradeExperettes called on a diverse set of experts from academia, think tanks, international organizations, and the private sector to contribute to the annual “Quick Wins” report, which offers practical suggestions for policy makers to address modern trade issues. This year’s report, Ten “Quick Wins” for Trade and the Environment, includes concrete actions that countries can take on their own to advance the trade and environment agenda, and identifies areas that could benefit from international cooperation.
As WTO members prepare for the next Ministerial Conference, they have the opportunity to advance the goals expressed in the Marrakesh Agreement by putting the ideas contained in this report into action. Other institutions are well positioned to support this work by cross-pollinating efforts to facilitate the green transition. Sir David Attenborough once said that “it’s easy to feel overwhelmed or powerless by the scale of the issues facing our planet, but we have the solutions.” The stakes may be high, but the steps that need to be taken to ensure a sustainable future for all is right before us. We must seize it.
Editors,
MARÍA BELÉN GRACIA, EUIJIN JUNG, INU MANAK, PENELOPE RIDINGS, ELIZABETH WHITSITT
Maastricht, Washington DC, Coromandel, Calgary
Project Coordinator,
JOHANNA HILL
San Salvador
August 28, 2023
