JOB(06)/140
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JOB(06)/140 8 May 2006

Committee on Trade and Environment

Special Session

MARKET ACCESS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL GOODS:

THEENVIRONMENTAL AND DEVELOPMENT BENEFITS OF WASTE WATER MANAGEMENT AND SOLIDANDHAZARDOUSWASTE MANAGEMENT PRODUCTS

Non-Paper by Canada, the European Communities, New Zealand, Japan, Norway, the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, Switzerland, and the United States

I.  Introduction

1.  This non-paper has been prepared in the context of the Chair of the Committee on Trade and Environment Special Session’s request that Members provide "detailed explanations on the environmental and developmental aspects of products that have been identified under the two new categories"[1].It elaborates in detail on both of these aspects and notes how improved access for environmental goods may contribute to achieving improved environment and development outcomes. It also elaborateson approachestaken on dual and multi-use items. This non-paperis therefore submitted for the purpose of facilitatingtechnical discussions. It is also submittedwithout prejudice to the positions of the co-sponsors on the items included in the annex and the co-sponsors reservetheir right to add or to delete or to amenditemscurrently listed. In this context, the attached annexcontains all of the items proposed to date by Members in the categories of waste water management and solid and hazardous waste management.

2.  It is the view of the co-sponsors of this non-paper that substantially increasing market access for appropriate environmental goods through the reduction or, as appropriate, elimination of tariffs and non-tariff barriers will ensure a “win-win-win” outcome for all WTO Members. In particular, it will secure enhanced access at a reduced cost to products and technologies that support all Members’ environment objectives, including in particular improving domestic “environmental conditions and resource management”.[2] Moreover, enhancing the trade in environmental goods is expected to help Members achieve some of the international development objectives established through the Plan of Implementation agreed at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). It will also increase foreign exchange earnings, expand employment and incomes[3] in Member economies as well as facilitating access to and encouraging the use of environmental technologies, which can in turn stimulate innovation and technology transfer.

II.  Definitions of Categories

3.  One definition of the category of waste water management products that has been used internationally is ‘equipment or specific materials for the collection, treatment and transport of wastewater and cooling water.’ Solid waste management products have been defined as ‘equipment or specific materials for the collection, treatment, transport, disposal and recovery of hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste’.[4] These definitions have already been used internationally to identify specific ‘environmental goods’.[5] Taken together these products make a measurable contribution to improving the management of both waste water and hazardous and non-hazardous waste.

III.  Environment benefits

4.  The environmental benefits of most of the items proposed to date in the categories of waste water management and solid and hazardous waste management are detailed in the Annex to this paper.

IV.  Development benefits

5.  Over the past decade and a half, more than a billion people have gained access to improved sanitation. This number has, however, failed to keep pace with population growth. As a consequence inadequate or non-existent sanitary and waste water management systems continue to affect a significant proportion of the global population. The 2006 World Water Forum in Mexico City, for instance, concluded that 2.6 billion people suffer from inadequate sanitation.[6] Some eighty percent of these people live in Asia, 13 percent in Africa and 5 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. The World Health Organization (WHO) has noted that the number may be considerably higher since this ‘sanitation gap’ at the household level is worsened by the limited and poor quality waste water and waste management facilities available in schools.[7]

6.  The lack of access to sanitation, safe water and hygiene is judged by the WHO to be the third most significant ‘risk factor’ for poor health in developing countries. The first is low body weight which may in fact be causally linked to the absence of a safe water supply and adequate sanitation.[8] More than one and a half million deaths per annum are attributed to unsafe water supply, sanitation and hygiene. Diarrhoea is the most significant disease associated with poor waste water management and the spill-over effects of unsafe water, poor sanitation and a lack of hygiene cause the deaths of more than 1.5 million people each year. Particularly worrying is the fact that 90% of these people are children under the age of five. At the United Nations General Assembly in 2002, the Special Session on Children reported that nearly 5,500 children die daily as a consequence of contaminated food and water – triggered in part by inadequate waste and solid waste management. The numbers of deaths and incidences of illnesses caused by a lack of adequate sanitation and poor or inadequate water supply are broadly comparable with major diseases. Globally, for instance, diarrhoeal disease alone kills more people than malaria or tuberculosis.

7.  Internationally, Governments have established a wide range of targets that are relevant to the two categories under negotiation. Perhaps the most relevant is that contained in paragraph 8 of the WSSD Plan of Implementation. This was to halve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015. The following section provides further specific detail on Development Goals that are relevant to the negotiations at the WTO under paragraph 31 (iii) of the Doha Ministerial Declaration in the categories of waste water management and solid and hazardous waste management.

·  Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on development and poverty eradication and World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) Implementation Plan 2002, Paragraph 7(a) regarding, regarding halving, by 2015, the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water;

·  MDG on reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters by the year 2015 and child mortality by two-thirds by 2015 and portions of the WSSD Implementation Plan 2002 related to maternal and child mortality;

·  MDGs on halting and reversing by 2015 the spread of HIV/AIDS, the scourge of malaria and other major diseases that afflict humanity;

·  WSSD Implementation Plan Paragraph 8: “The provision of clean drinking water and adequate sanitation is necessary to protect human health and the environment… we agree to halve, by …2015, the proportion of people… who do not have access to basic sanitation...”;

·  WSSD Implementation Plan Paragraph 22(a): “Develop waste management systems, with the highest priority placed on waste prevention and minimization, re-use and recycling and environmentally sound disposal facilities, including technology to recapture the energy contained in waste, and encourage small-scale waste recycling initiatives that support urban and rural waste management and provide income-generating opportunities”;

·  WSSD Implementation Plan Paragraph 24: Managing the natural resource base of economic and social development;

·  WSSD Implementation Plan Paragraph 25(d): “Intensify water pollution prevention to reduce health hazards and protect ecosystems by introducing technologies for affordable sanitation and industrial and domestic waste water treatment; by mitigating the effects of groundwater contamination and by establishing, at the national level, monitoring systems and effective legal frameworks”;

·  WSSD Implementation Plan Paragraph 26(e): “Support the diffusion of technology and capacity-building for non-conventional water resources and conservation technologies, to developing countries and regions facing water scarcity conditions or subject to drought and desertification, through technical and financial support and capacity-building”;

·  WSSD Implementation Plan Paragraph 26(f): “Support, where appropriate, efforts and programmes for energy-efficient, sustainable and cost-effective desalination of seawater, water recycling and water harvesting from coastal fogs in developing countries, through such measures as technological, technical and financial assistance and other modalities”; and

·  WSSD Implementation Plan Paragraph 66(d): “Protect water resources, including groundwater and wetland ecosystems, against pollution, and, in cases of the most acute water scarcity, support efforts for developing non-conventional water resources, including the energy-efficient, cost-effective and sustainable desalination of seawater, rainwater harvesting and recycling of water.”

V.  General Development Benefits

Health

·  improved health and quality of life indicators; and

·  improved targeting of health resources to higher priorities.

Direct economic benefits

·  increased productivity through improved levels of economic efficiency; and

·  increased environmental and energy use efficiency.

Broader economic benefits

·  creates demand for related products and services boosting levels of economic activity and employment;

·  promotes penetration of and demand for related technologies, especially those appropriate for implementation on a small scale;

·  helps create an environment in which improved environment standards are supported;

·  creates an enhanced tourism environment; and

·  increases ability to meet overseas export standards.

Practical Examples of Developmental Benefits

·  Relief of pressure on government budgets, including at state and municipal level. Savings may be reallocated to environmental policy, inspection and enforcement budgets, to other social services and to the overall budget balance;

·  Creation of skilled and unskilled work for local workers, in design, construction and long-term operation of the facilities;

·  Foreign and local investment attracted to the community, owing to the availability and enhanced efficiency of water and waste management systems, bringing more jobs, stable economic growth and a larger local tax base;

·  Experience of local private-sector partners extended in specialised projects which can be (and are being) exported to other countries with similar needs and operating conditions;

·  Build-Operate-Transfer operations which are often a feature of the environmental goods trade are often provided to local communities after a specified time. These comprise further significant environmental resources, and sources of employment in the future;

·  Local and foreign companies participating in this trade gain new opportunities to deploy their skills and technologies;

·  Potential benefits from enhanced export flows in sub-regional or regional markets; and

·  Increased foreign investment flows may also expand the export of environmental goods and services from developing countries.

VI.  Dealing with Dual and Multiple-Use Items

8.  Addressing dual and multiple-use-related issues is a matter that needs to be considered in the context of the paragraph 31 (iii) negotiations on environmental goods. This is a particular (though by no means unique[9]) challenge for these negotiations.

9.  In order to effectively address the issues thrown up by dual and multiple-use products, a pragmatic approach should be adopted. This needs to take into account the broader commitment of Members to “maintain the process of reform and liberalisation of trade policies, thus ensuring that the system plays its full part ion promoting recovery, growth and development”[10].

10.  In this context,a range of possible approaches to the negotiations have been suggested in the submissions and exchanges to date. Without prejudice to the other considerations which have been proposedto identify environmental goods, we would make the following observations. Firstit will be noted that some Members consider that if all or the majority of the items in a 6-digit HS category serve an environmental purpose or those items are considered of importance to the relevant environmental sector (e.g. sewage treatment equipment), then all products within that 6-digit HS category should be included for liberalisation. Second,a number of Members further consider that there are some instances where a minority of products in a 6-digit category are of environmental and development significance (e.g., potable water treatment equipment). Third, it is acknowledged that the Harmonised System Commodity Description and Coding System (HS) does not provide a unique HS code for every possible product that can be traded internationally. In such cases therefore, specific environmental goods have been identified that are best described in terms of product descriptions that can only be located at a more detailed tariff-level (i.e. the 8- or 9-digit HS code, as appropriate). In these circumstances, what is known as 'ex-outs' (or "ex-headings”) have been used.[11] It is only those items identified through the 'ex-out' which would be liberalised as a consequence of the environmental goods negotiation, rather than the entire category at the HS 6-digit level. The co-sponsors look forward to further discussions on a case by case basis.

11.  Finally, it is recognized that the cross-comparability between Members' Customs Codes of these items beyond the HS 6-digit level is limited. This is because each country uses its own domestic coding or other classification methods. It is proposed therefore that once the 6-digit HS code and the ‘ex-out’ description of a product is agreed by Members in the negotiations under paragraph 31 (iii), implementation will be left to individual Members, i.e. Members will be able to define the product according to their own domestic requirements.

VII.  Conclusion

12.  In sum, by fulfilling the mandate from Ministers established in paragraph 31 (iii), the cosponsors believe that Members can make an important contribution to achieving a range of domestic and international environment and development objectives.

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ANNEX 1

INDEX

I. Waste Water Management 8

Purification Equipment 8

Filtering Equipment 11

Disinfecting Equipment 14

Parts 15

Chemicals Used In Treating Waste Water 28

II. SolidandHazardousWaste Management 31

Recycling 31

Pre-Treatment Of Waste (Separating) 34

Pre-Treatment Of Waste (Compacting) 37

Pre-Treatment Of Waste (Chemical/ Other) 39

Waste Treatment (Land Fill) 41

Waste Treatment (Incineration) 42

Containers For Waste 48

Transport Of Waste 49

Parts 49

Other Waste Management Equipment 50

JOB(06)/140

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I.  Waste Water Management

ENTRY / HS / MEMBER'S DESCRIPTION / EX-OUT / ADDITIONAL PRODUCT SPECIFICATION / REMARKS / ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFIT / OTHER LISTS / MEMBER /

Purification Equipment

42. / 293100 / Other organo-inorganic compounds / Nitrification and urease inhibitors / Nitrification and urease inhibitors prevent nitrogen leaching from soil, fertiliser and/or urine from livestock. Nitrification inhibitors restrict microbial conversion of ammonium to nitrate and hence to the gases nitrogen and nitrous oxide (nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas). Urease inhibitors inhibit the enzyme urease, thus restricting the conversion of urea in urine to ammonium. / OECD / New Zealand