The relaunching of negotiations on environmental goods: Any breakthrough in sight?

The Bali agreement last December has given new hope that the WTO is not dead. The recent announcement that negotiations on the reductions of tariffs on environmental goods are to resume gives hope that the triple-win outcome of the Doha round – for trade, for development and for the environment – might materialise, at least partly. Or does it? This column argues that unless the field of negotiations is widened, the initiative will not help much.