Trade negotiators have missed a deadline to help protect fish stocks

  • 📰 TheEconomist
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 85 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 37%
  • Publisher: 92%

Belgique Nouvelles Nouvelles

Belgique Dernières Nouvelles,Belgique Actualités

Little else is happening at the WTO. Fish may be on the table, but the accompanying bargaining chips are off the menu

leaders signed up to a long list of sustainable development goals, among them an agreement to limit government subsidies that contribute to overfishing. Negotiators at the World Trade Organisation were told to finish the job “by 2020”. They have missed their deadline.

Overfishing is a tragedy of the commons, with individuals and countries motivated by short-term self-interest to over-consume a limited resource. By one measure, the share of fish stocks being fished unsustainably has risen from 10% in 1974 to 33% in 2015. Governments make things worse with an estimated $22bn of annual subsidies that increase capacity, including for gear, ice, fuel and boat-building.

Negotiators are trying to devise a system that would alert governments to offending boats, which would become ineligible for future subsidies. That is tangling them up in arguments about what to do when a boat is found in disputed territory, how to deal with frivolous accusations and how to treat boats that are not associated with any country offering subsidies.

When it comes to legal fishing of overfished stocks, it is easier to spot the subsidies in government budget lines, but no easier to agree on what to do about them. America and the European Union, for example, have been arguing over whether to allow subsidies up to a cap, or whether to ban some subsidies and take a lenient approach to the rest. Thefavours the second option, arguing that where fisheries are well-managed, subsidies are not harmful.

China, both the world’s biggest fisher and biggest subsidiser of fishing, has proposed capping subsidies in proportion to the number of people in each country who work in the industry. But it is the world leader here, too, with 10m at the last count . Other countries fear such a rule would constrain China too little.. Ms Tipping thinks this could be helpful, since the issue will not end up hostage to other, even more fraught, trade rows.

 

Merci pour votre commentaire. Votre commentaire sera publié après examen.

Very sad.

I'm not sure if you're joking but the trade deadline was for a fish stock that was already in use for a few years.

CatioMiles 😔 ‘just get on with it’ was all I heard. This is unprofessional and presents poorly for the economy. We are facing serious issues relating to trade from these people.

Be careful with de fish, it can swim back oooooo 🤔🤔🤔

La “Tragedia de los Comunes” o de las consecuencias de la ausencia o de la imposibilidad de asignar derechos de propiedad

Wtf are our governments doing!!

In the future, we may need 'beyond fish'?

ale ryba !

If ocean pH drops further due to higher CO2 concentrations then fishing at all will be a moot point. The only real issues today are stopping/ minimizing combustion. It’s that simple. Add to that the planting of billion of long lived carbon sequestering trees.

Have to say that fish is sold in deceptively small cans*... *tuna

All the fish will be gone in 2050 capitalism consume the world

Just like gun laws will only benefit the bad guys

subsidize

Back to you in the studio, Chris

Guess it's a race between all the plastic infesting the ocean or over fishing.

Nous avons résumé cette actualité afin que vous puissiez la lire rapidement. Si l'actualité vous intéresse, vous pouvez lire le texte intégral ici. Lire la suite:

 /  🏆 6. in BE

Belgique Dernières Nouvelles, Belgique Actualités

Similar News:Vous pouvez également lire des articles d'actualité similaires à celui-ci que nous avons collectés auprès d'autres sources d'information.

Stocks in Australia trade higher; investors await Chinese manufacturing PMIShares in Australia traded higher in the morning of the first trading day of the year, ahead of the release of a private survey on manufacturing activity in China for December.
La source: CNBC - 🏆 12. / 72 Lire la suite »