The Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has charged world leaders to join the WTO in charting a trade roadmap for a just and ambitious global response to climate change.
Okonjo-Iweala, who made the call in an opinion article on Climate Change published on Tuesday by Financial Times, explained that building on work that was already under way as the global trade organisation envisioned a menu of trade actions for countries to draw upon when revising their national climate targets (or nationally determined contributions) — in line with their different levels of development.
The former Nigeria’s Minister of Finance stated that the menu might include concrete actions to help facilitate trade in environmental goods and services, put a price on greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonise supply chains and make them more resilient to climate shocks, scale up circular business models and promote secure and sustainable food systems.
In demonstration of the WTO’s commitment to charting a trade road map, the Director-General said that the board and management can transform the organisation’s Aid-for-Trade initiative into a programme that expands opportunities for sustainable trade, especially in places that have not seen the full benefits of international commerce.
She explained: “Climate change is an existential threat. Left unabated, we will see more scenes of desolation like in Pakistan, where recent flooding left a third of the country under water and put food and economic security at risk.
“Tackling this crisis is an inescapably global issue requiring urgent and bold leadership. Despite forces threatening to pull apart the world community, we simply cannot fragment, decouple economies and create separate trade blocs. At the COP27 UN climate summit this week, I will ask leaders to join forces in creating a trade-related agenda for a just and ambitious response to climate change”, Okonjo-Iweala added
According to her, the multilateral trading system has much to contribute but this cannot be delivered without co-operation between countries.
The Director-General recalled that at the WTO’s Ministerial Conference last June WTO members agreed to curb harmful fisheries subsidies that led to over-exploitation of our oceans, thereby demonstrating that multilateral co-operation is possible when emphasis is placed on saving our global commons. It must stay that way.
She also noted that this year, the 2022 World Trade Report on trade and climate change confirmed that the cost and disruption inflicted by climate shocks on global commerce were high and rising.
As a remedial strategy, Okonjo-Iweala stressed that ramped-up financing would also be indispensable to a successful response to climate change, adding that developing countries need the long-promised $100bn of annual climate financing to ensure a just transition to a clean energy future.
