FISHY BUSINESS — Good news: The World Trade Organization has reached a long-awaited deal to cut subsidies that have helped deplete fishing stocks to dangerously low levels in some parts of the world. Bad news: The deal is much weaker than it could have been, after a process that illustrates the difficulty of getting to any kind of meaningful global environmental agreement — even on something as targeted and tangible as fish populations. Countries around the world spend billions of dollars every year subsidizing their fishing industries. Tax breaks on gas, handouts for shipbuilding and improvements to dock facilities have made it easier to catch more fish than ever before — so much more, some say, that it threatens the future of a vital part of the global food chain. WTO negotiators in Geneva last week agreed on a deal that will ban subsidies directed toward illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing or on overfished stocks. But what they failed to do was put rules on broader subsidies that can lead to overcapacity — construction and acquisition of vessels, purchase of equipment, fuel assistance and market support. A matter of fairness: Agreeing on environmental policy in the U.S. is hard enough, where legislation is subject to myriad competing corporate interests. The same applies at the global level, but for some countries it can be less about corporate profits and more about protecting livelihoods. India had blocked the talks for a period, balking at demands that it phase out certain types of subsidies in seven years, arguing that developing countries be given 25 years instead. Indian officials argued that their subsidies don’t benefit industrial-scale commercial fishing fleets as in China, Japan and European nations, where overcapacity is truly a problem, and said cutting the handouts would mean economic ruin for the small-scale operations that comprise its fishing industry. “We don't operate huge fishing fleets to exploit the resources indiscriminately like any other advanced fishing nation,” Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said in remarks at the meeting in Geneva. The WTO episode is yet another lesson on why global efforts to tackle other issues like climate change will continue to be a slog. Six months after the COP26 conference in Scotland yielded pledges to direct $100 billion in climate financing to developing countries, Russia’s war on Ukraine has sparked a global energy crisis that may make those promises difficult to keep. Numerous studies show that pursuing environmentally sustainable policies or transitioning to clean energy can pay dividends in the long run, but sometimes the short-term costs are just too much to bear. See: India's reluctance to reshape its coal sector, which by some estimates directly employs 700,000 and indirectly helps another 10 million-15 million put food on the table. “How can anyone expect that developing countries can make promises about phasing out coal and fossil fuel subsidies?” India’s environment minister and lead climate negotiator Bhuphender Yadav said at the end of the COP26 summit. “Developing countries have still to deal with their development agendas and poverty eradication.” The lessons from Glasgow and now Geneva show the magnitude of the challenge that lies ahead. As international organizations and some governments push the idea of even more ambitious climate and environment goals, such as a global minimum tax on carbon emissions, the sensitivities of developing nations, and their calculations on social and political costs, will continue to be a major consideration.
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