The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Hawaii announced plans to cut tariffs in all 21 APEC countries to no more than 5 per cent for trade in "green goods" by 2015.
The agreement appears to be entirely in Australia’s favour as we do not now have any tarriffs of more than 5% on environmental imports but some of our exports are subject to higher tarriffs.
This agreement is separate from the ambitious 9-nation free trade plan also announced at the forum.
The plan to cut green tariffs was accompanied by an APEC-wide pledge to phase out "inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies" and to try to cut energy intensity per unit of GDP across the member nations by 45% by 2035. Such commitments made at APEC are non-binding.
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