Business, Organized Labour And Climate Policy: Forging A Role At The Negotiating Tablel

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Mickie Nawwar

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Dec 23, 2023, 6:34:26 AM12/23/23

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Another major problem is that the United States does not appear to be in any hurry to conclude any trade agreements. The Biden Administration and USTR in particular are sensitive to political pressure coming from the more progressive members of the Democratic party as well as organized labor. While negotiating a trade commitment with climate change mitigation as a central goal would assuage some fears among the progressive left, experts interviewed for this paper emphasized that the Biden administration appears reluctant to move to jumpstart EGA negotiations.

First, the United States should lead by proposing a new framework for negotiations that avoids many of the pitfalls of previous approaches to defining environmental goods. This new framework would focus on the primary drivers of climate change and seek to liberalize goods that play a direct role in combating climate change. Today, the top contributors to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are, from most to least emitting: 1) energy use in industry, 2) agriculture, forestry, and land use, 3) energy use in buildings, 4) energy use in transport, and 5) other categories, such as fugitive emissions. The international community should begin by negotiating an agreement to liberalize goods with specific capabilities to tackle these top five emissions categories. By no means exhaustive, the below table suggests HTS items for negotiators to consider under this framework. The table below suggests that negotiators begin with five goods for each of the five top contributing categories of global GHG emissions. In general, these categories would have direct impacts on climate change mitigation, such as filtering air pollution on an industrial scale or treating contaminated water. Many, but not all, of these goods were included on previous WTO and APEC lists, though new items have been added to account for changes in technology. Among these items previously negotiated, preference was given to those where there was a relatively broad consensus on the need to reduce tariffs, for example, items on which the European Union, Canada, Japan, and United States had previously agreed. This table provides a working list of goods likely to achieve international consensus while demonstrating that the core goal of the negotiation is climate-focused, which should move the needle on domestic politics.