(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[innovation] Right now, dealers from all over the world are sitting together around large conference tables in Accra, Ghana. You should not ignore the fact that the occasional bead of sweat runs down the forehead of up to several of the dealers. Not primarily because of the temperature, which is around a comfortable 25 degrees in Ghana's capital during the day, no the beads of sweat probably also flow because the task – to create an effective global climate agreement – is, to put it mildly, twisted.
The Accra negotiations are ongoing from 21. to 27. August is a step on the way to the big climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, where the world will agree on an agreement that can take over when the Kyoto agreement expires in 2012. At least the plan is to agree. There are many challenges.
– The main problem today is that we lack sanction mechanisms to punish those who do not comply with their obligations, says Marius Holm, deputy head of Bellona.
Bård Harstad has a proposal for how this problem can be solved. He previously worked at Nupi and now works as a researcher at Northwestern University near Chicago. There he researches international agreements and negotiations, now focusing on climate agreements. Harstad tells Ny Tid that he believes a link between the climate agreements and the trade agreements may be necessary to achieve an effective, global climate agreement that will hurt to break.
Unique opportunity
- On July 29, we saw that the WTO negotiations broke down. Doesn't that make such a link unrealistic now?
– No, a link between climate and trade is more realistic if such agreements are negotiated at the same time, which will probably happen in 2009. Thus, the break in the Doha negotiations will provide a unique opportunity to link these agreements, thus making the climate agreement more credible. or attractive, Harstad answers.
The principle of sustainable development is already enshrined in the WTO. In a column on page 36 of this issue of Ny Tid, Anne Therese Gullberg at CICERO and Christina Voigt at the Department of Public Law at the University of Oslo write that a trade war over environmental policy could arise. "The EU's climate action should therefore in all probability not be
in violation of WTO law, ”they conclude.
The dealers who now sit and sweat in Accra have several challenges they must balance. The Kyoto agreement, which was negotiated in 1997, means that 37 industrialized countries must cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 5,2 per cent compared to the 1990 level until 2012. An overwhelming majority of climate scientists believe this is too little to prevent anthropogenic climate change . Consequently, a new agreement must involve greater cuts. In addition, several countries must join. In the Kyoto agreement, no developing countries are included, not even major polluters like China and India. Nor has the United States joined the agreement.
Although the obligations in today's Kyoto agreement are quite small, there are several countries that will not meet their obligations. The only punishment they receive is that they must commit to recovering the lost in the next contract period. This is not enough, says Bård Harstad, who argues that both carrot and whip must be used to motivate countries to enforce their obligations.
Whip and carrot
- To put in place sanction options, ie whips, is difficult. If the requirements for emission cuts are too great, several countries will be tempted not to participate, or to choose not to fulfill their obligations, says Harstad.
In international politics, there are not many carrots or whips to use. Therefore, Harstad believes that we need to start the debate about linking climate agreements with trade agreements, and he envisions two possible links.
– One link is to use trade sanctions as the ultimate sanction option, in cases where a country repeatedly violates its obligations and does not pay the fees that should initially be required for such violations. This may simply be the only real, ultimate sanction option – or whip – that one can use in practice. Trade sanctions have already shown that they have a certain effect in motivating countries to comply with their trade agreements, says Harstad.
– But can some countries be tempted to sanction to protect their own industry, even though there may not be a real basis for such sanctions?
– Yes, there is a certain danger of that, but this can to a large extent be avoided by creating a kind of Dispute Resolution Body, as the WTO has, says Harstad.
The second, more ambitious, link he envisions between a climate agreement and a trade agreement is that countries participating in a climate agreement can at the same time benefit from better trade conditions, ie as a kind of free trade area.
– This may look like a carrot to participate, but it can also seem like a whip for not participating. One danger with such whips is that if certain countries, let's say the United States, choose not to participate, one will have to resort to costly trade sanctions. If this is difficult to implement in practice, the threat of whipping will not be credible, and thus worthless. To a certain extent, this can be solved by not using sanctions in relation to current trading conditions, ie a whip, but instead better trading conditions for the participating countries in relation to current conditions, ie a carrot, says Harstad.
– Thus, a link between trade and climate agreements is not an ideal solution, but this may be the only way to get enough countries to actually cut their emissions significantly. Such a link may simply be necessary to bring about an effective sanctions regime that punishes countries that do not meet their obligations, Harstad sums up.
A connection of the type Harstad outlines has hardly been up in the Norwegian debate before. When Ny Tid calls Norwegian environmental organizations and politicians, several ask for time to discuss with the rest of the organization before they speak.
Read more in this week's issue of Ny Tid
