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Ecological Challenge Launched at FTAA |
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By Gumisai Mutume*
The presidents gathered at the Summit of the Americas received a loud message in Quebec: a hemisphere-wide trade accord must take the environment into consideration; otherwise it will not succeed in driving sustainable development.
QUEBEC CITY - Proponents of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) got an earful in this French Canadian city as more than 200 representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), business, intergovernmental agencies and academics gathered to demand the inclusion of sustainable development provisions in the Alaska-to-Tierra del Fuego trade treaty.
Quebec City, host of the 34-nation Summit of the Americas this month, was the setting of anti-globalization protests, of public seminars about the relationship between trade and sustainable development, and of dialogue toward making the FTAA more environmentally sound.
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the World Conservation Union, North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), organized a three-day ''Hemispheric Trade and Sustainability Symposium'' prior to the Summit to elaborate environmental proposals to present to the hemisphere's presidents.
Environmentalists have linked the recent unprecedented rates of global economic expansion to the equally unprecedented rate of global environmental degradation.
Representatives from civil society in general are demanding transparency in the FTAA talks, which have so far been conducted behind closed doors.
The link between economic expansion and environmental and social deterioration is, for some critics, sufficient grounds for halting further trade agreements.
The FTAA is to encompass nearly 800 million people in an area that produces 11 trillion dollars worth of goods and generates 3.4 trillion dollars of world trade.
Prospects for an overarching trade agreement between the 34 countries involved in the talks have created fears that hard-fought domestic environmental laws could be constrained by new trade regimens amid the rush to attract jobs and foreign investment.
''While there is room for argument that the FTAA promotes economic growth, the argument does not follow when it comes to sustainable development,'' said Miguel Reynal of ECOS, a non-profit research center in Uruguay.
''This is our everyday reality in Latin America. Poverty leads to pollution, and pollution is unsustainable. Such conditions do not attract private investment, or if they do, private investment tends to lean too much more towards profitability,'' Reynal pointed out.
FTAA negotiations have still been unable to address ''the contentious issue of trade policy as it relates to environmental and social policy,'' notes a statement released by the organizers of the Hemispheric Symposium.
''The FTAA agreement should adopt a 'pollution havens' clause that rejects the lowering of environmental standards as a method for attracting investment,'' says the document.
In addition, it must prevent the risk that Canada and the United States manipulate environmental provisions to justify protectionist measures.
Among the challenges the FTAA participating nations face is harmonizing existing environmental regulations, agreed the delegates at the symposium.
Across the Americas there are currently more than 270 environment and sustainable development accords that use trade-related measures to achieve their objectives. But enforcing these in a region with such a diverse mix of countries and cultures is no easy feat.
The FTAA will bring together some of the wealthiest countries in the world - such as the US and Canada - with some of the poorest, such as Haiti. And it will link huge countries like Brazil with tiny ones like Saint Kitts and Nevis.
One way to handle this, the symposium proposed, would be to set up a new Americas Ecological Accord to act as an international policy coordinating body on trade and the environment.
The symposium also called for establishing a High Level Experts Group, linking intergovernmental organizations like the UNEP with hemispheric institutions, including the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Development Bank, and with government, industry and civil society.
* Gumisai Mutume is an IPS correspondent.
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