WTO failure bodes ill for climate change: delegates

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2008

GENEVA (AFP) — The failure of key powers to agree a new pact on global trade does not bode well for international cooperation in other areas such as climate change, top delegates warned Tuesday.

The European Union's agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer-Boel told journalists that the collapse of talks after nine days at the World Trade Organization headquarters in Geneva would have "wider consequences than we have ever seen before."

"If we cannot even manage trade, how should we then find ourselves in a position to manage the new challenges lying ahead of us" such as climate change, Fischer-Boel said.

Her point was echoed by Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean, who said that success here in Geneva would have been an "important signal" ahead of new...