World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala recently said that trade and economic cooperation between nations cannot be left behind when tackling the issue of climate change.
According to a press release, Okonjo-Iweala was speaking at a high-level event with world leaders during the COP27 climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt to mark the launch of the WTO’s World Trade Report, which focused on climate change and international trade this year.
“There is one big missing issue in what we need to do to fight climate change, and that is the absence of trade and trade policies in the nationally determined contributions and national adaptation plans,” Okonjo-Iweala said, according to the press release. “We cannot afford to leave trade and WTO behind in this effort. The reason we're here to launch this report is because we want to make that point, and to offer specific recommendations and some actions that countries can take and fold into the revision of their plans.”
Okonjo-Iweala talked about how the World Trade Report maps out pathways for governments on how to use trade to support plans for tackling climate change. She was joined at the event by International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados, French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna and Alok Sharma, president of the 2021 COP26 in Glasgow. Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, a global energy and climate innovation editor with The Economist, moderated the event.
Examples of trade actions that could mitigate climate change include opening up trade in environmental goods and services, improving cooperation on carbon measurement and verification, transforming the WTO's Aid-for-Trade initiative into an investment program that expands opportunities for sustainable trade in less affluent nations and adopting decarbonization standards.
Okonjo-Iweala also noted that the WTO is working with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and other organizations on a global carbon pricing framework. They are taking into account the amount different countries pollute and national income levels while working on this framework.