“Progress over the last year 30%.

The Doha Round is essentially and the challenges facing the new WTO DG are truly daunting. He takes office with a reputation for being the "insider" or the "Geneva" candidate. Will he be up to the internal changes needed in the Secretariat and can he work out a transition from the Doha fiasco to the next round of trade negotiations. Or will there be a next round at the multilateral level. He faces his first Ministerial in December, barely three months after taking office and it is a real challenge to even have his core team in place by then.

Things are happening at the regional level, with the participation of Japan on the TPP and the LDP landslide victory in the Upper House Elections in Japan. Will Abenomics extend to a removal of at least some of the protection extended to Japanese agriculture? Will the combination of the TPP and the Canada/EU negotiations lead to similar improvements in the idiotic Canadian supply management system?

And we now have the beginnings of the US/EU talks. Is there a glimmer of hope that all of these regionals could remove at least a few blocks from the wall of agricultural protection? And if all three negotiations were to be successful, what will be the implications for the WTO?”

“Progress over the last year 20%

Over the past year, the science of climate change has become even harder and the pessimism shown by even traditionally conservative institutions like the IMF, World Bank and the IEA has reached a crescendo.

The scenarios predicted by the IEA are now showing possible temperature increases of up to 5C, in contrast with the 2C maximum agreed to by leaders in Copenhagen. These increases would be catastrophic to life on earth. The IEA has developed outline strategies for the period leading up to 2030, perhaps the critical period. But despite encouraging signs in the development and implementation of low carbon technologies, we are from the IEA targets.

Both Christine Lagarde and President Kim of the Bank took advantage of the Davos pulpit to emphasize the importance of acting on climate change with the Managing Director of the IMF declaring it to be the biggest economic challenge facing the world today. The IMF followed up her remarks with a hard-hitting study of subsidies to the energy industry. These were estimated to be in the order of $1.3 trillion per year.

The IMF study reinforced the G-20 thrust on fossil fuel subsidies, which seems to have had little impact on policies over the past year. After a good start in Pittsburgh, governments have predictably lost interest in doing battle with entrenched special interests.

There has been a little progress to report on carbon pricing. Australia has introduced a cap and trade system, although it may not survive the coming election. More significantly, China has launched a series of pilot emissions pricing and trading schemes, with a view toward a national system if they are successful.

Finally, there is the question of climate finance. The developed countries claim to have met the $30 billion target they set in Copenhagen, but this has been disputed by many NGOs and developing countries. And the new Green Climate Fund has set up shop in Korea. But the funding gap is enormous and international leadership from both governments and the private sector is urgently needed for funding for both mitigation and adaptation.”