Spain: Zapatero: we need a WTO for the environment

Spain is proposing to create an international environmental organisation modelled on the World Trade Organisation that would gather the efforts of all the countries against deforestation, climate change and the decrease in biodiversity, would take binding decisions and would avail itself with the power to sanction in cases of non-compliance.

The Spanish Minister for the Environment stressed the need for reshaping the environmental policies of the United Nations, which has many environmental-related programmes and agencies, and to gather them under a common framework such as an international environmental organisation that would result in a better use of the resources and tools currently available. The United Nations has already started working for this project to become a reality.

It is clear that deforestation, climate change and the decrease in biodiversity are problems that can not be solved without taking into account the international dimension they obviously have. For example, climate change particularly affects the most vulnerable countries in the world, like African countries and small islands that paradoxically are among those that have least contributed to today?s environmental degradation.

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