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Obama, Asian leaders forge green deal
President Obama and other leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit vowed Sunday to ease trade barriers on “green” products, but Obama emphasized that he remains frustrated with Chinese trade policies that U.S. officials call unfair.
The summit in Hawaii produced a pledge to create a list of environmental goods that will be subject to reduced tariffs in coming years, and leaders also vowed to eliminate non-tariff barriers such as domestic content requirements.
“We agreed to reduce tariffs on environmental goods and make it easier to export clean energy technologies that create green jobs,” Obama said late Sunday in Hawaii, where the U.S. hosted the summit.
The Wall Street Journal reported that while the green trade agreement was a key U.S. goal for the summit, U.S. officials had wanted the tariff limits in place by the end of 2012, not 2015, but faced resistance from China and other developing nations.
The APEC plan comes amid tensions between U.S. and Chinese officials over subsidies and other policies the Chinese government uses to boost manufacture of solar panels, wind turbines and other products.
The U.S. has taken its concerns about China’s wind energy trade practices to the World Trade Organization.
Last month, a group of solar manufacturing companies asked U.S. officials to probe Chinese solar subsidies they call unfair and called for new duties. The companies allege China is flooding the U.S. market with underpriced solar panels and subsidizing its solar industry in violation of World Trade Organization rules.
Obama, in a news conference Sunday, expressed frustration with Chinese currency valuation practices, intellectual property protections for U.S. companies doing business there and other issues.
He did not single out renewable energy trade practices but more broadly called for a level playing field between the two economies.
“I think we can benefit from trade with China. And I want, certainly, to continue cultivating a constructive relationship with the Chinese government, but we’re going to continue to be firm in insisting that they operate by the same rules that everybody else operates under,” Obama said.
In addition to the trade measures, the “green growth” section of the final APEC summit declaration calls for phasing out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies, which joins an existing pledge among G-20 nations, and for weaving low-emissions development into APEC nations' economic growth plans, among other steps.
It includes an aspirational target of reducing APEC’s aggregate energy intensity — that is, the amount of energy level consumed relative to economic activity — by 45 percent by 2035.
“We can and must address both the region’s economic and environmental challenges by speeding the transition toward a global low-carbon economy in a way that enhances energy security and creates new sources of economic growth and employment,” the declaration states.
The deal is aimed at building on past APEC green efforts. An annex to the declaration estimates that tens of trillions of dollars of investment will be needed in coming years to meet clean energy, sanitation, air quality and other goals.
“Ensuring that we can meet these goals at the lowest cost, utilizing the latest technologies, while also creating new, green jobs will be a significant challenge. In order to meet this challenge, we will benefit from open markets and enhanced environmental technology dissemination,” it states.
