Greening Trade

This chapter analyses the emergent “green trade” agenda at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the broader context of the greening of the WTO since its founding in 1995. Drawing on Lacan’s theory of the four discourses, we argue that the difficulties the WTO Secretariat and WTO member states have faced in advancing this agenda can be interpreted as a tension between the (capitalist) Master’s Discourse and the (green) discourse of the University, with green trade proposals being attempts to quilt the two discourses together. We analyse efforts within the organization to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies, debates over carbon border adjustments and the harmonization of carbon pricing, amongst other issues. The resistance by some WTO members to green trade initiatives points to the potentially irresolvable conflict enshrined in WTO trade rules, reflecting a Master’s Discourse that celebrates unrestricted growth, alongside a simultaneous green Discourse of the University that increasingly recognizes (and disavows) the need for restrictions and regulations in trade policy to mitigate climate change. Through this tension, the WTO’s green trade agenda generates new forms of attachment to the symptom (carbon emissions) that keep subjects engaged in enjoying the sinthome : striving to make green trade work despite, and because, of the contradictions between trade and climate.