Preparing for Rio 2012: Trade Opportunities and Challenges in a Green Economy

WTO Public Forum

21st September 2011

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With the Rio 2012 meeting coming up less than a year after the WTO Public Forum, the aim of this session is to generate a broader and deeper understanding of Green Economy issues as they relate to trade. The session will be part of a consultative process on trade and the green economy in the lead-up to Rio 2012 and will focus on presenting new perspectives and exploring potential ways forward.

Up until now, the preparatory process for Rio 2012 has met with obstacles due to anxiety or unease among some parties with regard to the Green Economy concept, specifically due to trade-related concerns and fears of green protectionism. These issues merit more nuanced exploration, and would strongly benefit from input from the trade community, as the debate so far has been limited mainly to the environment community.

Topics for the session will comprise: the role of subsidies in greening key sectors, including sustainable energy; greening Aid for Trade; and the evolving nature of intellectual property, technology transfer and innovation with regard to environmental technologies.

Forging coherence between wider issues of trade, sustainable development, and the nexus between trade and sustainable development governance will be of key importance to the future of the trade system, and will also present a challenge to it. By seeking ways to better understand the linkages between trade and the sustainability issues to be addressed at the Rio 2012 Conference, this session will contribute to that objective.