Protecting Farm Interests Harmed WTO, Threatens Carbon Talks - NGO

Increasing protection of agricultural industries by advanced economies, including the United States and European Union, in the name of environmental interests and greenhouse gas reductions threatens next week’s climate change talks, according to World Growth, a non-governmental aid organization.

The “determination” in the EU and even the U.S. to protect farmers from competition is “now poisoning efforts to negotiate strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, just as it had poisoned the Doha Round,” Alan Oxley, World Growth Chairman and Australian trade consultant, said in a statement issued late Thursday.

A double standard exists, with the EU deciding not to demand its farmers (most on land once forest) to reduce greenhouse gases yet insisting in the talks in Copenhagen that developing countries in the tropics stop converting forest land to agriculture because this might increase emissions, he said.

CME Group