WTO launching global carbon price task force – Okonjo-Iweala

LONDON (Reuters) – The World Trade Organization is launching a task force to create a methodology to determine global carbon prices to ensure that plans to tax imports based on their carbon emissions do not unfairly penalize developing countries, director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said on Tuesday.

Okonjo-Iweala said a global carbon price is important to allow developing countries to continue to compete as Europe launches import taxes based on the CO2 emissions of certain goods based as part of efforts to mitigate climate change.

Some WTO members, she said, view the tax as a protectionist measure, while other nations do not have the tools to determine the carbon price of their exports.

“What we’re trying to do actually is to say, can we develop a methodology for global carbon price that everybody can sign on to?” Okonjo-Iweala said at the FT Africa Summit in London.

She said that during IMF-World Bank meetings in Marrakech last week, she proposed a multilateral task force to create a global methodology for carbon pricing.

“It has been accepted by all the finance ministers to form this task force. And I’m going to initiate it so we’ll pull it together because I want our countries to have an approach and the methodology which would enable them to talk to the developed countries,” she added.

African countries, she said, have historically generated roughly 3% of global emissions, making it particularly important to avoid penalizing countries on the continent during Europe’s push toward a lower-carbon future.

The European Commission has said the border levy is in line with WTO rules. Okonjo-Iweala said there was “no WTO rule against trying to get to net zero” as long as it did not stop others from competing.