India and developing nations are likely to oppose any effort by developed countries to link environmental issues with trade at the forthcoming UN conference on climate change (UNCCC). Developing countries fear that linking environment issues with trade could result in loss of market access as compliance with some of the environmental norms may result in significantly higher costs.
The conference will be held in Bali, Indonesia from December 3 to 14. Commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath is expected to attend a trade ministers? meeting to be held on December 8 and 9 during the conference. Increased costs related to environment norms could act as a non-tariff barrier for exporters from developing and poor countries. It could also result in total denial of market access to the developing nations in the developed world.
A government official said rich countries, especially from the European Union, might want to dictate terms by linking environment standards, including process standards, with trade using UNCCC as a ?backdoor route?.
?But India, along with other developing countries will oppose any such move,? an official said. ?The right forum for trade talks is the WTO and not the UNCCC. Environmental issues can be discussed at the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC), but these should not be tied up with trade,? he added.
?The real problem is that these rich countries may put some technical barriers or non-tariff barriers to trade by linking non-issues like social conditions of labour, pollution norms in cities etc to trade, which will in turn affect our exports,? said Ajay Sahai, director-general, Federation of Indian Export Organisations.
However, according to Biswajit Dhar, Head, Centre for WTO Studies, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, ?Developing countries could use such fora to highlight the high per capita energy consumption and emissions of the developed countries as a bargaining point and get better access to environment friendly technology.?
According to the environment and forests ministry, the per capita energy consumption in India is below 500 kg of oil equivalent (kgoe), as against the global average of about 1,800 kgoe. Also, the country?s per capita CO emissions are about 1 tonne per annum, compared to the world average of 4 tonne per annum.
Though rich countries argue that energy consumption of countries like India and China is growing at a faster rate, Indian experts say this contention was flawed as the absolute consumption levels of rich countries are much higher than the developing nations.