Trade can have an important role to play in the mitigation of, and adaptation to climate change. The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) - are among those that have touched on this issue at various levels. The authors examine the various priorities and positions of these agencies and relevant developing country member concerns that have informed their responses.

Inclusive Green Growth: The Pathway to Sustainable Development makes the case that greening growth is necessary, efficient, and affordable. Yet spurring growth without ensuring equity will thwart efforts to reduce poverty and improve access to health, education, and infrastructure services. Countries must make strategic investments and farsighted policy changes that acknowledge natural resource constraints and enable the world’s poorest and most vulnerable to benefit from efficient, clean, and resilient growth.

India is a Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Government of India attaches great importance to climate change issues. The Convention aims at stabilizing the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at safer levels that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Eradication of poverty, avoiding risks to food production, and sustainable development are three integrated principles deeply embedded in the Convention.

Policy development occurs across many different sectors of government, and these policies can have far-reaching implications once they have been formalised and become the base for future government activities and budgets. Conceptually, SEA would be the appropriate tool to assess these policies for their environmental consequences. SEA would also encourage the policy proponents to consider environmental and sustainability impacts, issues and opportunities, within their policy designs, preferably during the early stages of policy development.

The Asia-Pacific region continues to face a deeply challenging external environment. The V-shaped recovery from the depths of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis in 2010 proved to be short-lived, as the world economy entered the second stage of the crisis in 2011, due to euro zone debt concerns and the continued uncertain outlook for the United States economy. The region will be affected by slackening demand for its exports and higher costs of capital, as well as by loose monetary policies and trade protection measures of some advanced economies.