Equity - what is fair and what is possible?

Martin Khor, Executive Director of the South Centre, held a meeting with youth to give his run down of the negotiations. He gave an eye opening perspective on the context of the negotiations. His insights demonstrate just how difficult it will be to get the required mitigation. There were two main themes I took from his discussion:

1.       Politics of burden sharing through equity

The atmosphere is a global commons that we all share and have a responsibility to maintain. Given the historic pathways of industrialisation and development as well as the aspiration to have a world without extreme poverty there is general acceptance that equity rather than equality is necessary for emission reduction targets. How equity is implemented is extremely political and contentious as no country wants to have the perception of having a larger or unjust responsibility than other parties.

The debates on equity have been occurring throughout the history of COP but ultimately have made no progress. The implementation of equity is particularly difficult given the decision making standard is that of consensus, so if one party thinks the standards set are inequitable, an agreement is not reached. The typical conflict here is between the developed and developing countries where the developing countries blame the developed for the majority of climate change. Alternatively, developed countries agree they need to reduce emissions but expect developing countries to do the same as otherwise they are taking on more of a burden than they want.  

2.       The possibility of reducing emissions to the required target

Beyond the politics, this issue of equity gets more complicated when looking at the numbers that Martin Khor gave us on mitigation. Trying to avoid 2C warming and allowing for a 7% annum increase for developing countries which is what they want and say they need for their economies and people presents knowledge, technical and political problems which currently cannot be solved. Martin using numbers from his report said it will not be enough for developing countries to reduce emissions by 100%, it will be more in the range of 3-400% in order to compensate for the developing countries increase in emissions. 

Beyond the political feasibility and popularity of reducing emissions, a country will only commit to a pledge in that is technologically achievable given the knowledge and finances available. Lowering emissions by 20% is a massive challenge for many countries and political feasibility reduces this back down to 5-10% for many developed countries. There isn’t technology out there presently that will enable 100% emissions let alone beyond 100% so this is a huge challenge going forwards.

How we go forward with these numbers is a challenging situation and suggests the discussions on equity are far from over.

(All posts by Institute delegates reflect their own thoughts, opinions and experiences, and do not reflect those of the Institute. For official Institute updates, take a look here)

WTO Public Forum Day 3

 As day three rolled around, I had already learnt so much but was keen to cap off the week with one last full day.  Most of the speakers on this day built upon the mains themes of the forum, namely the increasing importance of trade in services (specifically over the internet) to national economies, the need for WTO rules to be updated in light of this and the opportunities for greater economic growth and poverty relief that the digital economy presents, especially for less developed regions in the world.  

Some speakers and sessions however decided to focus on different issues.  For example, one was exclusively concerned with online information security i.e. what are the present risks, what individuals can do to protect personal and business information from security breaches, as well as a case study in how one multi-national company has introduced a comprehensive product tracking and systems to protect is goods as they’re traded around the world.  Breaking away from ideas that had been discussed extensively for the past two days was somewhat refreshing and rounded off the forum well.  As the final session came to a close, I felt satisfied that I had got all I could have out of the forum and had met some important and influential people along the way.  However, I was looking forward to doing some sightseeing in the time I had left.

All posts by Institute delegates reflect their own thoughts, opinions and experiences, and do not reflect those of the Institute.

For official Institute updates, take a look here.

WTO Public Forum Day 2

Rolf Heuer, Director General of CERN, was the keynote speaker for the second day’s plenary session.  There were a lot of confused faces when he got up to speak, all asking the same question “What has physics got to do with international trade?”.  Mr Heuer’s speech turned out to be one of the most interesting I listened to over the course of the forum.  He spoke about how discoveries and breakthroughs in physics have underpinned the creation of new technologies that are used every day to manage the transport, tracking and safety of goods and services moving around the world.  Furthermore, he discussed how important the research they are currently doing at CERN will be to the world economy in the future, even in ways we cannot right now foresee.  

This idea of technological innovation being crucial to improved efficiency of trade was complemented by the idea that innovation need not necessarily be in electronics/technology.  Another speaker pointed out that one of the most important innovations which has helped facilitate trade was the creation of standardised shipping container sizes.  This has made the process of storing, transporting and offloading bulk goods much easier, as heavy machinery could be designed to match the container specifications exactly.  It was on this day that I also met a senior member of New Zealand’s permanent mission to the WTO and UN.  His insights into the conversations between country delegates over trade disputes and negotiations were very interesting given it revealed what incentives and factors influence these situations.

All posts by Institute delegates reflect their own thoughts, opinions and experiences, and do not reflect those of the Institute.

For official Institute updates, take a look here.

WTO Public Forum Day 1

It was an early start for day one of the WTO Public Forum, hosted at their headquarters which is located right next to Lake Léman.  Arriving there in the morning I was at first a little confused about where I was supposed to be going, but soon found my way to the main hall where the daily plenary session was held.  The forum officially began with a discussion between some highly distinguished guests, such as Michael Froman, the United States Trade Representative, Roberto Azevedo, Director General of the WTO and Alexander Stubb, Minister of European Affairs and Foreign Trade for Finland.  The panel these people were on (which included other trade experts from a variety of backgrounds) had some amazing insights into the future of trade and the relevant policies governing it.  They discussed the most pressing issues and newest ideas in the trade world, which included:

• What does market access mean when trade is intangible i.e. through (online) services? 
• How should trade in services between economies be regulated, and is the WTO able in its present form to actually fulfil its function of enforcing the rules?
• Understanding that a significant proportion of new global wealth creation will be directly or indirectly attributable to the digitization of information and its subsequent commercialization.

The afternoon session for each day (of which there were two) were more flexible, with attendees being able to select which smaller workshops and/or working groups they wanted to attend.  Topics for these ranged from “How can trade policy be adapted to global value chains?” to “Climate related standards and the green economy: opportunities and challenges for developing countries in South East Asia and East Africa”.

All posts by Institute delegates reflect their own thoughts, opinions and experiences, and do not reflect those of the Institute.

For official Institute updates, take a look here.