Campaign launched for sustainable trade liberalisation, Doha

An initiative designed to support international trade in sustainable energy goods and services has been launched at the UN climate talks in Doha.

The Sustainable Energy Trade Initiative (SETI) is supported by the chair of the UN Sustainable Energy for All Institute and the Chinese government. The group’s members include the governments of Denmark, Norway and Seoul, as well as NGOs and, from the private sector, the World Economic Forum, General Electric, Vestas Wind Systems and many others.

SETI will lobby to cut down trade barriers to the international exchange of renewable energy technologies. The aim is that more renewable energy will be available for the rural poor, to increase green jobs and lower reliance on fossil fuels.

Yves de Boer, former head of the UN’s climate change body, UNFCC, warned that unless everyone can understand the benefits of green growth, the agreement cannot work.

“While the last COP at Durban made great progress towards a new mandate,” he said, “it left a time bomb in the form of wording of the agreement, which calls for a ‘process to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force’. No one is quite sure what this means,” he said.

Because the private sector bears the greatest responsibility for ensuring the world becomes more sustainable, he argued, the case has to be made for low carbon investments.

Mr de Boer comments are contained in Will Doah Deliver a Deal? a paper published by KPMG, where he is the special adviser on climate change and sustainability.

The trade liberalisation campaign comes from the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development, based in Geneva, a committee which aims to encourage international trade policy negotiators to push forward on sustainable development.

Launching the campaign, Denmark’s minister of trade, Pia Ohlsen-Dyhr, said: “If we are to truly combat climate change effectively, the global society must find a constructive way forward in green trade liberalisation.”