DOHA (AFP) — World trade ministers must avoid discarding the environment in their battle to expand global trade, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) chief Klaus Toepfer said.

“Environmental issues, seen by many as a controversial topic, must not be sidelined at the fourth WTO ministerial conference,” the UNEP executive director said in a statement last Friday.

“It is important for all actors in the global trade talks to recognise that we must design new policies, which successfully combine the efficiency and income-generating opportunities of trade with effective protection of the environment.”

The European Union is calling for protection of the environment to be incorporated in the discussions, which are aimed at drawing up an agenda for a new round of trade liberalisation negotiations.

Developing countries, however, fear the issue could become yet another obstacle blocking free access to rich nations’ markets.

“It is important to retain WTO safeguards that prevent the environment being used as an excuse to keep those markets closed — the danger of ‘green protectionism’,” Toepfer said.

But the struggle to improve incomes in developing countries should at the same time avoid harming the environment, he said.

“This will address problems of natural resource depletion and environmental degradation to maximise the net development gains from trade.”