UWI calls for restructuring of international trade to meet climate goals

Sep 20, 2023 News

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Kaieteur News – Director of the Shridath Ramphal Centre at the Cave Hill Campus, UWI, Dr. Jan Yves Remy  and a group of leading international policy experts have developed a reform agenda for the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the global trading system that would better support ramped-up action on climate change and help fulfill the world community’s commitment to achieving a sustainable future.

In support of the UN 2023 Sustainable Development Summit taking place in New York City this week, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres announced that the UN review of global progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reveals that the world community is on track with regard to only 15% of the SDG targets – and that many nations are going in reverse on critical goals.

The Remaking Global Trade for a Sustainable Future Project– representing a diverse consortium of trade and sustainability thought leaders organized by the Shridath Ramphal Centre at the University of the West Indies, Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy – has released a roadmap for restructuring the international trade system. This reform agenda promises to promote progress across all 17 of the SDGs – including tackling climate change, eliminating poverty, protecting biodiversity, advancing a clean energy future, protecting the oceans, delivering more stable agriculture systems and freshwater, strengthening critical supply chains and eliminating waste while moving toward a circular economy.

Speaking about the rationale for the Project, Dr. Remy one of the co-leaders of the Project noted that “People and governments across the world expect the WTO to reinforce and not undermine the global community’s commitments to climate change progress and sustainable development.”  She noted that “absent greater ambition, finance, and scaled-up global action, many developing countries, especially small island states, will not be able to combat the devastating effects of climate change nor deliver on the promise of the SDGs.”

The Remaking Trade reform agenda emerged from 10 workshops on topic areas ranging from climate change to the just transition to clean energy to oceans and the emerging Blue Economy as well as the social dimensions of sustainability (including poverty, labor rights, worker impacts, public health, and gender). Held in cities across the world, these workshops engaged more than 400 representatives from environmental NGOs, think tanks, business, and international organizations, including the WTO, UN Conference on Trade and Development, UN Environment Program, and International Trade Centre.

Introduced at the WTO’s Public Forum in Geneva last week, the agenda known as the Villars Framework for a Sustainable Trade System, was refined at a September 15-17 High-Level Summit Meeting for a Sustainable Trade System in Villars (Switzerland), which brought together more than 100 officials from trade ministries, environment and climate change agencies, environmental NGOs, academic policy centers, think tanks, and business.

Specifically, the Villars Framework for reform includes a call for:

• WTO members to commit to establishing a net-zero GHG emissions trade system by mid-century—a goal that aligns with the over-arching goal of 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact to which all 164 WTO member nations have committed.
• Fundamental restructuring of the WTO’s approach to subsidies with an emphasis on asking whether the government support in question promotes or diminishes sustainability and focusing on whether the support is trade-distorting.
• WTO action to ensure that no entity can obtain a competitive advantage in global markets by underperforming on environmental standards (including movement toward net-zero emissions) or other sustainability obligations.
• Promoting just transition strategies that would ensure that developing nations are positioned to meet emerging sustainability standards with incentives for investment and dedicated funding for cutting-edge technologies and projects as well as innovation strategies and capacity building programs that will enable them to develop their emerging comparative advantages and achieve success in global markets.
• Promoting sustainability-enhancing goods, services and technologies through WTO negotiations.
• Advancing WTO governance reforms that would enable more creative and nimble trade system decision-making to meet the needs of the moment.

“Regearing the WTO to deliver on its mandate to promote sustainable development represents a critical point of leverage for meeting the world community’s net-zero emissions goal,” Professor Dan Esty of Yale University, and Project Co-Lead said. “A recast international trade system represents one of the most significant policy opportunities to drive transformative change in support of ramped-up climate change action and movement toward a sustainable future.”

“Around the world, people and governments have lost faith in the WTO in recent decades,” said Joel Trachtman, professor of International Law at The Fletcher School and a Project co-leader, adding that “the Villars Framework offers a chance to revitalize the global trade system with a core focus on sustainability and new priorities that offer the promise of rebuilding public and political support for the WTO.”

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• achieving, Dr. Jan Yves Remy, progress, Shridath Ramphal Centre at the Cave Hill Campus, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, UWI

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