MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UN predicts climate change will trigger “green” (trade) war

Former Chilean president and currently UN Climate Change special envoy Ricardo Lagos said that industrialized countries would be imposing “green” barriers as a future strategy to combat climate change, basically taxing imports according to the contamination generated by the production of the goods involved.

"We'll be seeing a green (trade) war so that if developing countries wish to sell their produce they will have to give evidence that contamination has not increased because of the production of whatever good", said Lagos. The former president suggested developing countries fully participate in next year's negotiations to reach an international agreement in Copenhagen so "their voices can be heard and won't be submitted to rules they did not have participation in drafting". Next year's agreement is supposed to replace the 2012 Kyoto Treaty, the first ever at world level to admit the problem of global warming and which led countries to commit themselves to reducing contamination emissions. Lagos said Copenhagen will also be a chance to establish differences between the rapidly growing emerging countries and others which are poorer. The idea is for the first group to be entitled to "a transition period" when they will be able to opt from "different alternatives", while poorer countries will have a sort of free pass until at least 2020, when most probably another major negotiation will take place to see "what requirements will be demanded from all countries" Mr. Lagos said that although for the moment it will be difficult to ask developing countries to comply with similar conditions as industrialized nations, it will be possible to demand from them "a reduction in the rate of deforestation in exchange for some sort of financial compensation". The UN envoy said that different studies point out to the fact that 20% of greenhouse gases which propel climate change are carbon dioxide which the now logged trees could help to absorb. "It seems more logic to pay for each tree not logged than paying for replanting those cut". Lagos said that "paying poor farmers for cutting back on logging and helping to keep the current forests is a viable alternative". However he regretted the lack of world political leadership in the matter and suggested that Brazil and Mexico could play a leading role since both are in the list of the globe's twenty most contaminating countries with carbon dioxide. Lagos said he believed both countries were adopting concrete measures on the issue and this could have a positive impact on creating a Latinamerican common position in the coming negotiations of Denmark next year