Even as the international community remains almost exclusively preoccupied with what has become the herculean task of forcing the Covid-19 malady into retreat, the United Nations is beginning to turn its attention to life after the pandemic, the June 14-15 second edition of the UN Trade Forum seeking to provide a measure of global enlightenment on the actions needed for and inclusive and green recovery.
The organizers of what is billed as a virtual forum are expected to bring together “international trade experts, ministers of government, thought leaders and international organizations,” whom, the promotional pitch for the forum says, will “explore the role of trade policy in forging sustainable solutions that benefit people more equally.” The forum is being seen as an important precursor to UNCTAD’s 15th Quadrennial Ministerial Conference scheduled to be staged in Barbados from October 3-7, this year.
The forthcoming forum comes after climate change had been given “a break” by the Covid-19 pandemic, according to UNCTAD Acting Secretary General Isabelle Durant. “It will only be an exception if we don’t take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation even as we pursue economic recovery and prosperity,” Durant says.
Global lockdowns having wreaked havoc with livelihoods in 2020 also had the altogether unintended effect of reducing carbon dioxide by 5.8% under the weight of a cataclysmic decline in economic activity. Durant says, however, that carbon emissions are rapidly rising again as economies recover.
A key focus of the forthcoming forum will be discourses on strategies regarding how trade policies can be deployed to “avoid a spiral that threatens the environment and our existence,” Durant says.
One of the insightful outcomes of the advent of Covid-19 is the role that it has played in demonstrating how trade policies impact on the environment. While trade is a source of income, jobs and opportunities, it generates around 8 billion tons of carbon dioxide emission annually, a quarter of the global total. The forum is expected to focus much of its attention on devising innovative measures to increase synergies between trade policy and climate action.
The UNCTAD Acting Secretary General is not optimistic, a report from Geneva says, that today’s trading system provides a suitable framework for effective implementation of such measures for the benefit of the international community and more particularly, poor countries. Accordingly, the trade forum will challenge some of the best minds in the business to explore ways in which the multilateral trading system can work for a lasting green and inclusive recovery.”
Its organizers say that the forum will examine how to drive the Covid-19 crisis recovery with a coherent trade policy mix that protects the planet and ensures more inclusive development. The premise of the forum is that while trade must be part of the climate solution, trade policy itself needs what the organizers describe as a “green streak.” The panel is also expected to address how to reduce trade tensions and strengthen multilateralism in order to avoid a return to the pre-Covid status quo.
