Ambassador Ram Prasad Subedi of Nepal, the new CTE Chair, facilitated the discussions. 

WTO Trade and Environment Week 2026

The seventh WTO Trade and Environment Week, opened by Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, comprised 16 sessions, all organized by WTO members, with the event attracting particularly high levels of participation. Adding together participation at each session, the Week recorded close to 800 in-person attendances and nearly 600 online connections. Social media outreach generated approximately 163,000 impressions during the Week.

The WTO Secretariat’s report on the event highlighted strong engagement and rich discussions throughout the Week, with members and stakeholders exchanging views and building understanding on the trade and environment nexus.

Members welcomed the success of the Week, especially the diverse range of topics covered and the quality of the panel discussions, which enabled broad and in-depth information-sharing. Members expressed a desire to continue the event next year.

The full programme and video recordings of the 2026 Trade and Environment Week are available here. 

New information-sharing exercise

As agreed by members at the last meeting of the CTE in February, members initiated, on a pilot basis, a voluntary sharing of information on their trade and climate measures, including in relation to embedded carbon emissions measurement.  Japan and Australia shared information on their domestic trade-related climate measures (TrCMs) using the template tables in WT/CTE/W/271.

Japan outlined its “Basic Policy on Promoting Green Procurement” (WT/CTE/INF/7), which establishes specific environmental performance criteria for public procurement of designated items. Under the policy, iron and steel are subject to additional criteria for calculation of lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.  Australia highlighted its “New Vehicle Efficiency Standard” (WT/CTE/INF/8), first presented at the CTE interactive session in January 2026. Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions standards for commercial vehicles are intended to support the achievement of its updated Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement.

Members welcomed the valuable contributions of Japan and Australia in enhancing transparency on TRCMs and exchanged views on the information shared. Many members stressed the importance of ensuring interoperability between national standards and internationally agreed standards, such as those developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The need to take into account the development dimension when deploying TrCMs, as well as the importance of assessing their impact on market access for developing economies, was also emphasized.

A call was made for more members to volunteer and submit information so that the exercise can reach sufficient scale and facilitate mutual understanding. A few members indicated their intention to make submissions and share information on their trade and climate measures in the near future.

Next thematic sessions

The Chair reported on members’ suggestions for CTE thematic sessions to be organized in the remainder of 2026 and in 2027.

Members supported a deeper examination of trade and climate measures, with a particular focus on interoperability and development aspects. In addition to “deep-dives” of previously covered topics, members highlighted the need to address new topics, including the circular economy, environmental goods and services, green technology transfer, bio-inputs and sustainable agriculture.

The Chair noted that, in light of the broad interest, the next thematic session to be held in September 2026 will focus on trade and climate-related measures, in particular the interoperability and coherence of different methodologies, as well as the development dimension of the issue. Regarding future thematic sessions beyond September, the Chair indicated that an informal meeting will be organized in due course to discuss the timeline and content of the proposed topics.

Updates and briefings  

Members heard a presentation from the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on upcoming meetings as well as its preliminary plans for the 2026 Climate Change Conference (COP31) to be held in Antalya, Türkiye in November 2026. The WTO Secretariat also provided an update.

New Zealand and Ecuador, on behalf of the co-leads, briefed members on the latest activities of the Coalition of Trade Ministers on Climate, including their Communique at the 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) (WT/MIN(26)/41). 

The CTE was also briefed on MC14 outcomes by the co-sponsors of the member-led Dialogue on Plastics Pollution and Environmentally Sustainable Plastics Trade (DPP), the Trade and Environmental Sustainability Structured Discussions (TESSD), and the Fossil Fuels Subsidy Reform (FFSR) initiative.

The WTO Secretariat presented the latest information in the WTO Environmental Database (EDB), including information drawn from the 2025 WTO Trade Policy Review reports. At the request of members, the Secretariat also provided an update on the WTO Secretariat’s ongoing and planned activities related to trade and the environment. ISO and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as observer organizations, also updated members on their respective activities relevant to the work of the Committee.

Next meeting

The next meeting of the Committee on Trade and Environment is scheduled for 28-29 September.