Climate Change is a Growing Global Challenge

Back from Lyon, France after attending the World Entrepreneurship Forum. I will report about it later this week (catch a quick glimpse of award ceremony venue here).

In the meantime, a new APEC website for the Environmental Goods and Services Information Exchange (EGSIE) went live. The EGSIE is an innovative new website that will promote information-sharing and collaboration related to cutting edge environmental technologies in the Asia-Pacific region and will also promote the dissemination of such technologies globally.

Learn more here.

Let's Not Distort International Trade and Investment

The global recession has taken a harsh toll on international trade, particularly for many members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. World trade in goods and services will fall sharply in 2009 and is unlikely to rebound much in 2010, so APEC members must ensure that they do not make this bad situation worse by implementing protectionist policies (yes, the second of two posts in two days on this topic) that restrict opportunities for trade and investment.

To this end, APEC members should follow three guidelines for trade policy:

Do no more harm to the global trading system through damaging tariffs or subsidies; help world trade recover by accelerating and broadening the Doha Round trade negotiations; and complement Doha with APEC initiatives on trade, the environment, and regional economic integration.

Read more here.