The thing that struck me most this morning (that would be Monday morning here for those of you reading this Sunday night) as I was riding in a cab to a meeting in Bali at the UN climate change meeting was this front-page headline in The Jakarta Post: "Climate Change A New Focus For WTO." And I thought immediately: that could mean the end of the planet. Okay, so I exaggerate…or do I?

   Here are the first two paragraphs of the story (it’s not yet posted on-line as I write it but you might be able to find it soon at the newspaper’s website):

    An informal meeting of trade ministers concluded in Bali on Sunday with high hopes the World Trade Organization (WTO) will play a larger role in addressing climate change.

    Speaking on behalf [sic] on ministers and senior officials from 32 countries, Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said they had agreed to intensify high-level engagement on trade and climate change.

    If we believe that climate change is an immediate crisis (and I suppose there are still a few people who belong to the caucus of Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe who try to deny that climate change is upon us) and if we believe that drastic action must be taken to deal with the growing catastrophe, this is precisely what cannot happen. The WTO mission is entirely incompatible with the race to curb climate change (as was pointed out by a colleague in our labor delegation, Ana Belen Sanchez of Spain, we are not talking about stopping climate change–which has already happened–but trying to curb its potential more catastrophic effects).

    As readers of this blog know, I have consistently pointed out that the framework of so-called "free trade" is an unmitigated disaster for the broad range of community and social concerns, from labor to the environment. "Free Trade" is a marketing phrase, intended to make us think that the trade deals being made under the broad WTO framework are about exchanging goods between people. The WTO is not about trade; most of the rules on trading goods could have happens under the pre-WTO trading regime. The WTO is really about imposing RULES on countries that tighten corporate control over investment, capital, intellectual property and, as important, the ability of countries to govern themselves.  

    For example, the WTO regime allows companies to challenge national rules on labor and environment that might restrain the ability of corporations to do as they please. It is ludicrous to say, on the one hand, that slowing down climate change will require significant changes in the way we live and work (changes that will need to be put in place via our legislative process) and, on the other hand, hand the WTO a role in curbing climate change when it is a body that has, as a core operating principle, a right of corporations to challenge rules on climate change that have passed, or might be passed, by sovereign governments.

    Do we need a worldwide body that manages the climate change crisis? Of course. There has to be a planetary response to the crisis. That’s going to require a Herculean effort to come to some agreement about how greenhouse gases will be reduced–and that inevitably will mean some sort of agreement that governs how resources are used around the world. It’s going to mean a much different philosophy–one that is 180 degrees different from the WTO’s philosophy.

   Here’s a great example of the contradiction. The newspaper story raises a point made by our own U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab who pointed out that:

…the U.S. and the the European Union already proposed tariff reductions for 43 environmentally friendly products specified by the World Bank in its recent report. These include products like wind turbines, reservoirs for biomasses and hydrogen fuel cells.

    You see, Susie doesn’t get it. There is a much bigger issue here than just reducing tariffs: technology transfer. Here, in Bali, one of the big issues is whether developing countries will get open access to technology that can reduce emissions and "green" the environment. When you use the term "technology transfer" it means allowing a country to get access to the technology WITHOUT IT BEING CONTROLLED BY A MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION. For you tech geeks, think of this as "open source": you get the keys and the codes to a technology so you can develop and use it, and not pay outrageous licensing fees to multi-national corporations.

    That idea is totally at odds with the mission of the WTO. One of it core principals, written into virtually every so-called "free agreement", is to protect corporate intellectual property with a vengeance.

    Bottom line: the WTO’s philosophy is incompatible with curbing climate change.