The question of fast-tracking tariff cuts for
environmental goods and services (EGS) continued to divide WTO members during a
meeting of the organisation’s Committee on Trade and
Environment (CTE) on 13 November. Negotiations in this area - as part of the
overall Doha package - have been stalling for years.
At Tuesday’s CTE meeting, Russia and Australia introduced
the recent agreement under the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
regional grouping on a list of environmental goods set for liberalisation.
Under the September 2012 non-binding agreement, countries will cut applied
tariff rates to five percent or less by the end of 2015 for a list of 54
environmental goods - including solar panels and wind turbines. Australia
provided a summary of the negotiating history and the final outcome, emphasising the opportunity this agreement presented for
more progress in the area of EGS.
Following the presentation, several members took the
floor. While some - such as the EU and Switzerland - strongly welcomed the
announcement, others expressed concerns. Bolivia, India, and South Africa
feared that the APEC agreement may influence talks at the WTO, or that the
proponents of the list may later seek to “multilateralise”
it at the WTO. As many members asked for the floor, the talks continued after
the lunch break, which had not been originally scheduled.
Other topics included the effects of environmental measures
and market access. The EU also gave a briefing on sustainable fisheries
management, specifically focused on the EU’s regulations on illegal,
unregulated, and unreported fishing. Some countries felt these topics were more
of a sectoral nature and should not be discussed at
the CTE, as they fell outside its mandate. However, others said they felt more
comfortable discussing these critical environment-related trade issues in the
context of the CTE.
The meeting was preceded by a one-day workshop on
environmental technology dissemination, organised by
the WTO secretariat. The workshop had originally been proposed by Saudi Arabia
to focus on carbon capture and storage, but was broadened to cover low emission
technologies, waste management, and water treatment technologies as well.