Trade in Environmental Goods, with Focus on Climate-Friendly Goods and Technologies

No 2011.77, Working Papers from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei

Abstract: Paragraph 31(iii) of the Doha Ministerial Declaration mandates to the liberalization of environmental goods and services. This mandate offers a good opportunity to put climate-friendly goods and services on a fast track to liberalization. Agreement on this paragraph should represent one immediate contribution that the WTO can make to fight against climate change. This paper presents the key issues surrounding the liberalization of trade in climate-friendly goods and technologies in WTO environmental goods negotiations. It begins with discussing what products to liberalize and how. Given that WTO Members are divided by this key issue, the paper explores options to move current negotiations on the liberalization of trade in environmental goods and technologies forward, both within and outside the WTO. Recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for tariff liberalization for all countries and for all environmental goods, the paper suggests the need for a high degree of flexibility to accommodate different situations and stakes in the liberalization of trade in environmental goods. Given that there are simply not enough environmental markets or these markets are weak in many developing countries, the paper emphasizes that creating markets for environmental goods in developing countries is far more important than just improving market-access conditions for associated goods, and discusses how to best serve the interests and concerns of developing countries.

Keywords: Environmental Goods and Services; Low-Carbon Goods and Technologies; Market Access; Doha Round; WTO; Renewable Energy Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F18 P28 Q42 Q48 Q54 Q56 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://feem-media.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/w ... oads/NDL2011-077.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: Trade in environmental goods, with focus on climate-friendly goods and technologies (2013)
Working Paper: Trade in Environmental Goods, with Focus on Climate-Friendly Goods and Technologies (2011)
Working Paper: Trade in Environmental Goods, with Focus on Climate-Friendly Goods and Technologies (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fem:femwpa:2011.77

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alberto Prina Cerai ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).