PARLIAMENTARY PANEL WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE WTO PUBLIC FORUM 2007 Geneva (WTO Headquarters, Room D), 4 October 2007
	Organized jointly by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the European Parliament

	Over recent years, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has established a tradition of holding annual public events where participants from government, parliament, civil society, the business sector, academia and the media jointly reflect upon the functioning of the multilateral trading system and analyse the institutional state of the WTO. The Inter-Parliamentary Union has been associated with WTO public forums on a number of occasions, having organized parliamentary events within their overall programme. WTO Public Forum 2007 was held on WTO premises in Geneva on 4 and 5 October, under the overall theme How Can the WTO Help Harness Globalization? The overall programme of the Forum included over 40 events and can be consulted on the WTO website. As part of the Forum's overall programme, the IPU and the European Parliament organized a Parliamentary Panel entitled Trade and climate change: Is trade killing our planet? Over a relatively short period of time, the subject of global warming and climate change has ceased to be the exclusive domain of scientists and environmental activists, and been placed squarely on the political agendas of governments, parliaments and international organizations. In most countries, parliaments have a constitutional responsibility to review policy options, oversee government action and draw up the necessary legislation and budgets. Therefore, they bear their own share of responsibility for action or inaction with regard to global warming. The interactive panel examined, from a parliamentary perspective, the varied effects of trade liberalization on the environment, with a special focus on the nexus between seaborne trade and climate change. The panel took place on Thursday, 4 October 2007, from 4.15 to 6.15 p.m., in room D at WTO Headquarters (Centre William Rappard). It was open to all parliamentarians and other participants duly accredited to the WTO Forum, subject to the limits of the room's seating capacity (150 persons).

Updated on 1 October 2007
PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME
THURSDAY, 4 OCTOBER 2007
16:15 - 18:15 WTO Headquarters Room D		PARLIAMENTARY PANEL Trade and climate change: Is trade killing our planet?
		Moderator: - Mr. Patrick Baert, journalist, Agence France Presse
		Panelists: - Ms. Ivonne A-Baki, member of the Andean Parliament, former Minister of Commerce of Ecuador - Mr. Javier Moreno Sánchez, Member of the European Parliament (Spain) - Mr. Shakeel Mohamed, MP (Mauritius) - Mr. Awni Behnam, President, International Ocean Institute

RELATED SITES AND DOCUMENTS

	Invitation to the Parliamentary Panel [PDF]
	WTO Public Forum 2007 (main page)
	Panel Discussion "The perceived loss of "sovereignty" due to WTO accords: should parliamentarians be concerned?" held within the framework of the WTO Public Symposium 2005
	Panel Discussion "Parliaments and the WTO" held within the framework of the WTO Public Symposium 2003
	Annual 2006 session of the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO (Geneva, 1-2 December 2006)
	Hong Kong session of the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO (Hong Kong, China, 12-15 December 2005)
	Annual 2004 session of the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO (Brussels, 24-26 November 2004)
	Cancún session of the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO (Cancún, 9-12 September 2003)
	Annual 2003 session of the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO (Geneva, 17-18 February 2003)
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