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Authors, sign in!There appears to be conflict between developing and developed countries at the Copenhagen Climate Summit. The Obama administration and developed nations are trying to make China, India, and other developing countries commit to significant, binding actions of reducing carbon emission as they are expected to be the major polluters of the world (accounting for 97 percent of the future growth in emissions). Developing countries insist that because developed countries caused the current conditions of global warming via their industrial activities throughout history, they have to take more aggressive actions of cutting emissions and provide financial/technical support (i.e., $10 billion per year) of clean energy technologies to developing nations (Reference: Copenhagen Explained: A Game of Double jeopardy).
At this point, I would like to get into an “essential”, potentially useful, side track of experimenting with multilateral negotiations of climate change in conjunction with the mechanism of world trade, “Cooperation of Global Climate and Trade Regimes” ! (at least, it sounds eloquent !) If the current Copenhagen Summit does not deliver desirable agreement of cutting emission levels, what about working with the World Trade Organization (WTO) to further facilitate climate negotiations and obtain developing countries’ (especially China and India) strong commitments to this global cause?
What is the merit of involving WTO in climate talks? Developing countries, such as China and India, have achieved their economic growth that have been mainly fed by exports. Therefore, their need to meet WTO conditions to maintain, secure their favorable trade positions may provide vital negotiation / bargaining leverage in maneuvering climate talks if they are tied to WTO talks. In this way, WTO may provide strong, additional bargaining power to Climate Deals. Does this sound convincing?
I previously talked about the potential WTO effect on Climate negotiations on my Apr 26th, 2009 blog at mybarackobama.com website.
Published December 12, 2009 by Mikyung Lim |
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| Tags:
Climate Change
Foreign Policy
