Liberalizing Trade in Environmental Services to Support Environmental Goals

Despite a strong environmental and economic case for facilitating trade in services that serve an environmental purpose, and despite support by influential WTO members, past attempts to negotiate a liberalization of environmental services in a multilateral context have failed. Trade in services related to the environment can contribute to resource efficiency, to spreading technologies for the green transition, to the uptake and investment in environmental goods, and to low carbon development paths. We review the history of negotiations and identify the main problems faced by negotiators: an unclear scope and goal, an inflexible negotiating setup, poor management of sensitivities. We discuss advances in recent agreements such as the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability (ACCTS) and in regional organizations. We conclude by advancing possible solutions for successful negotiations on services related to the environment. A credible political narrative, a sound definition and a consensus on the scope, all aligned with clearly articulated environmental goals, would help to negotiate a list of environmental services in a flexible plurilateral negotiation set-up focused on environmental goals.