WTO to launch global carbon price task force

LONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters): The World Trade Organization is launching a task force to create a methodology to determine global carbon prices to ensure that plans to tax imports based on their carbon emissions do not unfairly penalize developing countries, director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said on Tuesday.

Okonjo-Iweala said a global carbon price is important to allow developing countries to continue to compete as Europe launches import taxes based on the CO2 emissions of certain goods based as part of efforts to mitigate climate change.

Some WTO members, she said, view the tax as a protectionist measure, while other nations do not have the tools to determine the carbon price of their exports.

"What we're trying to do actually is to say, can we develop a methodology for global carbon price that everybody can sign on to?" Okonjo-Iweala said at the FT Africa Summit in London.

She said that during IMF-World Bank meetings in Marrakech last week, she proposed a multilateral task force to create a global methodology for carbon pricing.

"It has been accepted by all the finance ministers to form this task force.