KEY POINTS:
Trade Minister Phil Goff says ministers meeting at the climate change forum have agreed that links between trade and effects on the environment have to be acknowledged.
Trade ministers met as part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting.
Mr Goff said the World Trade Organisation and the UN convention recognised the relationship between trade and environmental sustainability.
"It is important that climate change negotiations have built into their mandate from the outset, the WTO principles of non-discrimination, transparency and science-based rule making."
But Mr Goff said ministers did not want the environment to become an excuse for protectionism.
"There remains in some quarters, the often self-serving view that trade, through transportation of goods, is damaging to the environment."
Mr Goff said arguments such as food-miles did not stack up when production was taken into account.
He said subsidies and barriers should be environment-focused to ensure production was resource-efficient and sustainable.
- NZPA
