Comments On An Environmental Goods Agreement

INTRODUCTION

The Office of the United States Trade Representative, in the Federal Register of March 28, 2014 on behalf of the Trade Policy Staff Committee, requested comments and issued notice of a public hearing on negotiations for a World Trade Organization Environmental Goods Agreement as proposed by fourteen WTO members in January 2014.  The negotiation is framed by a list of fifty-four "environmental goods" endorsed for tariff elimination by APEC leaders in 2012.

The APEC leaders recognize that free trade in environmental goods would accomplish at least two objectives:  increase free trade generally, and enhance the global response to the dangers of climate change.  Easier global circulation of environmental goods, as reflected in the list of fifty-four specific items, should translate into greater deployment of goods that would reduce carbon footprints and thereby help arrest climate change.