Since the predecessor, the Brussels Programme of Action, has shown shortfalls in its implementation and monitoring mechanism, this policy brief constitutes the conceptual base for a new project which aims at conducting an independent monitoring of the IPOA that ICTSD intends to carry out together with other partner organizations, including the Centre for Policy Dialogue, the Commonwealth Secretariat, FERDI, Galatasaray University, the OECD Development Centre, and the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation. This process is aimed at being a compliment to other monitoring mechanisms and intends at helping to improve the efficacy of the IPoA’s implementation.

This paper is part of a larger research project conducted by ICTSD, in partnership with trade and development analysts, and research institutes from some developing countries which aim at assessing the effectiveness and development impact of the aid for trade initiative at country level.

With the growing recognition that innovation is key for economic growth and development, developing countries are currently considering a range of policies to promote innovation; many of these import or adapt policies from other countries.

Multilateral discussions also stress innovation policies: The World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO’s) Development Agenda emphasizes the need to promote creativity and innovation in developing countries (Recommendation 19), and to consider intellectual property (IP) policies that serve this end (Recommendation 25).

In this context, several developing countries, including India, Brazil, South Africa, Malaysia, and Jordan, are debating or have recently passed legislation modeled on the U.S. Bayh-Dole Act which facilitated patenting by American research universities.

As has been well documented by the proponents of Bayh-Dole type initiatives, since 1981, university patenting and licensing have increased dramatically, as has licensing income from university research. These data provide a main impetus for initiatives to emulate Bayh-Dole in developing countries.

The policy brief provides an assessment of one such bill, the Indian Bayh-Dole Act. It focuses on India because legislation is currently under consideration there; however, many of the issues considered are relevant for other developing countries.

It suggests that India—and other countries considering legislation of this sort—should provide specific guidance about what sorts of publicly funded research outputs ought to be patented, and what should instead be placed in the public domain.

The policy brief underscores the need to evaluate the positive and negative impact of Bayh-Dole type legislation and consider the range of other models and approaches that have evolved in the post-Bayh-Dole era, in response to these concerns.

The policy brief is also available at iprsonline.org

For countries seeking to design effective domestic or international climate change abating policy and incite mitigation, a solid understanding of the implications of greenhouse gas reduction policies for production incentives in agriculture and for international trade disciplines is imperative. From nearly twenty years of analysis and inquiry into the impact of human activity on climate and the effects of climate change on specific regions and economic sectors, we now know - albeit not at the level of detail and depth we need – that significant changes to agricultural production and trade are to be expected. The questions of how policies adopted to address climate change may affect agricultural production and how they relate to international trade rules are equally important and are also in need of further research.

This paper addresses these issues and makes the case for international trade rules that enable - rather than serve as obstacles to - sound policies to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. It also calls for climate change policies that do not lead to further distortions of the international agricultural trade system.

The ICTSD–IPC Platform on Climate Change, Agriculture and Trade is pleased to release this paper, trusting that it will contribute to a better understanding of these complex linkages and their treatment in the current negotiations in the international climate change and trade fora.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the existing international climate change agreements and the international negotiations underway and to point out the ways in which the agricultural sector – is – or may be – addressed in the international climate regulatory framework.  This overview is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis; rather it seeks to provide background information, outline options and identify areas which could usefully benefit from further analysis.  We emphasize the non-technical nature of the paper, which is mainly intended to inform stakeholders interested in agriculture, who may not yet be familiar with the climate change negotiations.  Readers are encouraged to refer to other sources, including those referenced here, for more detailed technical information.

The brief will examine the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which entered into force in 1994, and the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC, adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997, that entered into force on 16 February 2005.  We then focus on options and proposals for addressing agriculture-related issues in the Bali Road Map, which is to conclude in Copenhagen in December 2009.
First, we present a very brief overview of key adaptation and mitigation findings.  Although more detailed and location-specific research is required, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) key findings on adaption were that while warming is expected to decrease yields in the tropical and sub-Saharan regions, yields may actually increase in temperate regions. Sub-Saharan Africa was singled out as a region where climate change may increase the amount of people at risk of hunger.  There are agricultural adaptation measures, such as changes in agricultural practices and relocation of agricultural production, but the report warned that adaptation will be very difficult in low latitudes if temperatures increase by more than 3°C.

The global effort to address climate change will require a fundamental transformation of our economies and of the ways in which we use energy. Addressing climate change requires the internalisation of carbon costs, which will have signifi cant effects on what we produce, where we produce, what we trade and how we trade. For international co-operation on climate change to be effective, international regulatory frameworks need to support this effort.

The current phase of negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is set to lay the groundwork for the necessary policy reforms, and will require concerted and cooperative efforts by individual countries, the business sector and civil society. Innovation – with regard to both the technologies of the future and the regulatory frameworks used to usher them in at the scale needed – will be key to the successful implementation of the Convention. In this context, both the global trade regime through the World Trade Organization (WTO) and regional trading arrangements may need to be moulded and reformed to support action on climate change. As negotiations accelerate in the lead-up to the Copenhagen meeting in December 2009 and beyond, trade-offs and trade-related issues have emerged as elements of the discussions. Some of the issues within the future climate regime will have direct repercussions on the trade realm, and need to be well understood and prepared for. In order to contribute to the debate, this paper provides information on the most salient and pressing policy linkages. It addresses issues in the climate-trade interface that are relatively well known as well as emerging areas that need to be further researched.

The debate on trade and climate change has often treated climate change and trade policies as either friends or foes. The approach adopted in this paper takes climate change as the entry point. It frames the discussion within the fi ve pillars of the Bali Road Map: i) the long-term vision, ii) mitigation of climate change, iii) adaptation to climate change, iv) technology and v) fi nancing. The paper examines the various trade and climate change policy interlinkages with a view to identifying a positive agenda for trade and trade policies to contribute to a successful global climate change agreement and its implementation.

Produced by ICTSD under its Global Platform on Climate Change, Trade Policies and Sustainable Energy, this paper includes contributions from ICTSD staff in the programmes on climate change and energy, intellectual property and innovation, agriculture and development.

The Global Platform is aimed at contributing to effective international co-operation towards addressing climate change. It does so by advancing analytical capacity of stakeholders and their interaction with policy makers such that effective solutions can be identifi ed and agreed by the international community at the Copenhagen Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December 2009.

Gradual trade liberalisation and carefully managed market opening in these sectors can also be a powerful tool for economic development by generating economic growth and employment and enabling the transfer of valuable skills, technology and know- how embedded in such goods and services. In short, well-managed trade liberalisation in EGS can facilitate the achievement of sustainable development goals laid out in global mandates such as the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, the UN Millennium Development Goals and various multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs).

While Paragraph 31(iii) of the Doha mandate calls for a reduction, or as appropriate, elimination of tariffs and non-tariff barriers (NTBs) on EGS, the lack of a universally accepted definition on EGS has meant that trade delegates have struggled over the scope of goods and services that would be taken up for liberalisation. Further, while the aim of the EGS mandate is to liberalise, it provides no indication of the pace, depth or sequencing of liberalisation vis-à-vis ‘other’ goods and services. A major fault line in the negotiations on environmental goods is the dispute over whether only goods intended solely for environmental protection purposes should be included as opposed to goods that may have both environmental and non-environmental uses. A number of developing countries are concerned about the inclusion of goods which they perceive as only vaguely linked to environmental protection. They are also worried about the import-led impacts of including a broad range of industrial goods on their domestic industries, employment and tariff revenues. In a broader context, a lack of movement on issues of interest to developing countries, particularly agriculture, also inhibits proactive developing country engagement on EGS negotiations.

Developing countries are clearly interested in including, as part of ongoing WTO negotiations, products of export interest that could provide environmental benefits, export earnings and livelihoods to local populations. At the same time, many developing countries lack a comparative advantage in the so-called ‘traditional’ environmental goods and services that are reflected in lists developed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and are often capital and technology-intensive. This has also led experts to point to environmentally preferable products (EPPs) as an export category worth consideration by developing countries. The global market size and export share of developing countries in these products is, however, still relatively small. There are also systemic concerns developing countries have with regard to environmentally preferable products, particularly in those cases where environmental benefits arise as a result of the process and production methods (PPMs).

Negotiations on environmental services have also not made much headway. The issue of classification of environmental services is important as it will set clear parameters on the types of services that are actually liberalised. The development of sound domestic regulatory frameworks in the environmental services sector is also an important pre-requisite to liberalisation. It is feared that lack of strong regulatory mechanisms in the environmental services sector, combined with the ‘public service’ dimension of a number of these services, would hinder developing countries’ ability to ensure that trade liberalisation in these services was compatible with sustainable development objectives such as universal and equitable access.

It is obvious that the economic and social dimensions of sustainable development will play as important a role as environmental ones in guiding WTO Members’ negotiating strategy on EGS. But these elements also need to be more clearly defined by each country taking into account domestic sustainable development priorities and concerns. WTO Members should respond to these priorities and concerns by negotiating appropriately-crafted language and numbers.

The reality, however, is that clear knowledge gaps exist on the various dimensions of trade in EGS as well as the methods and options by which countries can formulate a domestic and negotiating strategy on EGS. This EGS Policy Discussion Paper is an attempt to bridge some of the knowledge gaps in this area and facilitate strengthened engagement of developing countries in the EGS negotiations so that they can work towards an outcome meaningful for their sustainable development goals and priorities.

The EGS Policy Discussion Paper is part of a series of issue papers commissioned in the context of ICTSD’s Environmental Goods and Services Project, which address a range of cross-cutting, country specific and regional issues of relevance to the current EGS negotiations. The project aims to enhance developing countries’ capacity to understand trade and sustainable development issue linkages with respect to EGS and reflect regional perspectives and priorities in regional and multilateral trade negotiations. We hope you will find this paper to be stimulating and informative reading and useful for your work.

While Paragraph 31(iii) of the Doha mandate calls for a reduction, or as appropriate, elimination of tariffs and non-tariff barriers (NTBs) on EGS, the lack of a universally accepted definition on EGS has meant that trade delegates have struggled over the scope of goods and services that would be taken up for liberalisation. Further, while the aim of the EGS mandate is to liberalise, it provides no indication of the pace, depth or sequencing of liberalisation vis-à-vis ‘other’ goods and services. A major fault line in the negotiations on environmental goods is the dispute over whether only goods intended solely for environmental protection purposes should be included as opposed to goods that may have both environmental and non-environmental uses. A number of developing countries are concerned about the inclusion of goods which they perceive as only vaguely linked to environmental protection. They are also worried about the import-led impacts of including a broad range of industrial goods on their domestic industries, employment and tariff revenues. In a broader context, a lack of movement on issues of interest to developing countries, particularly agriculture, also inhibits proactive developing country engagement on EGS negotiations.

Developing countries are clearly interested in including, as part of ongoing WTO negotiations, products of export interest that could provide environmental benefits, export earnings and livelihoods to local populations. At the same time, many developing countries lack a comparative advantage in the so-called ‘traditional’ environmental goods and services that are reflected in lists developed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and are often capital and technology-intensive. This has also led experts to point to environmentally preferable products (EPPs) as an export category worth consideration by developing countries. The global market size and export share of developing countries in these products is, however, still relatively small. There are also systemic concerns developing countries have with regard to environmentally preferable products, particularly in those cases where environmental benefits arise as a result of the process and production methods (PPMs).

Negotiations on environmental services have also not made much headway. The issue of classification of environmental services is important as it will set clear parameters on the types of services that are actually liberalised. The development of sound domestic regulatory frameworks in the environmental services sector is also an important pre-requisite to liberalisation. It is feared that lack of strong regulatory mechanisms in the environmental services sector, combined with the ‘public service’ dimension of a number of these services, would hinder developing countries’ ability to ensure that trade liberalisation in these services was compatible with sustainable development objectives such as universal and equitable access.

It is obvious that the economic and social dimensions of sustainable development will play as important a role as environmental ones in guiding WTO Members’ negotiating strategy on EGS. But these elements also need to be more clearly defined by each country taking into account domestic sustainable development priorities and concerns. WTO Members should respond to these priorities and concerns by negotiating appropriately-crafted language and numbers.

The reality, however, is that clear knowledge gaps exist on the various dimensions of trade in EGS as well as the methods and options by which countries can formulate a domestic and negotiating strategy on EGS. This EGS Policy Discussion Paper is an attempt to bridge some of the knowledge gaps in this area and facilitate strengthened engagement of developing countries in the EGS negotiations so that they can work towards an outcome meaningful for their sustainable development goals and priorities.

The EGS Policy Discussion Paper is part of a series of issue papers commissioned in the context of ICTSD’s Environmental Goods and Services Project, which address a range of cross-cutting, country specific and regional issues of relevance to the current EGS negotiations. The project aims to enhance developing countries’ capacity to understand trade and sustainable development issue linkages with respect to EGS and reflect regional perspectives and priorities in regional and multilateral trade negotiations. We hope you will find this paper to be stimulating and informative reading and useful for your work.