Amid Discord, WTO Members Explore Compromises on Environmental Goods

Doha Round proposals for expedited liberalisation for trade in environmental goods risk destroying infant green technology industries in developing countries without benefiting the environment, Brazil’s ambassador to the WTO argued recently.

Roberto Azevedo, Brazil’s WTO envoy, argued that negotiations under the Doha mandate for the reduction or elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to environmental goods and services (EGS) should include agricultural goods of particular interest to developing countries – not just industrial products.

Arguing that the chief objective of the negotiations was to deliver a ‘triple-win’ of environmental, developmental, and trade benefits, he stressed that the EGS were “not market access negotiations nor should they be turned into super sectoral market access negotiations,” in a reference to the sector-specific liberalisation initiatives that are part of the standard non-agricultural market access (NAMA) talks.

In his intervention in the Committee on Trade and Environment – special (negotiating) session, Azevedo underscored the need for an outcome that offers measurable environmental gains along with improved trade opportunities for developing countries. He criticised discussions in the committee for failing to “shed any light on how the environmental and developmental dimensions of the Doha mandate are to be fulfilled through tariff reductions [and/or] elimination on a list of goods of interest to some members only.”

The crux of Azevedo’s critique is not unique to Brazil. Several other developing countries, such as India, China, Argentina, and South Africa, have been critical of a list of 153 environmental goods submitted for prospective tariff elimination by a group of mostly industrialized countries in 2007. They argue that many of the items on the list have non-environmental purposes, and in general coincide with the export interests of industrial countries more than with any objective environmental measure.

Despite the contentious backdrop, WTO members have been engaging in simulation exercises to see how tariffs on the proposed list of 153 environmental goods might be reduced as part of a Doha Round agreement. China last week presented the results for three major industrialised members – the United States, the EU and Japan – and three major developing countries, China, India and Brazil.

Simulations reveal potential tariff cuts for specific EGs

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