Madam, - I believe that you are seriously mistaken in your somewhat naive assertion in relation to the breakdown of the WTO negotiations that "the real losers in these negotiations are the world's poorest countries" (Paying for trade talks failure, July 31st). It is also most unfortunate that your claims appear to sit very comfortably with the well-promoted assertions of a wealthy global elite.
For instance, I find it very difficult to see any "development" potential in the agriculture proposals that were one of the key planks of the WTO talks.
These proposals, if agreed, would have resulted in some of the poorest people in the world, enjoying the "privilege" of supplying cheap food to the most affluent society which has ever existed in the history of mankind, never mind the destruction of their own indigenous industries by reduced tariffs.
Trade does not in itself create wealth, as BP chairman Peter Sutherland would have us believe. Trade simply facilitates and speeds up the process. Wealth creation is dependant on the extraction of natural resources, both "renewable" and "non-renewable", and the application of labour to increase the value of these resources. This process has been accelerated over the last century through the increased use of technology; witness IT and the substitution of manual labour by energy from non-renewable fossil fuels, (the energy from one barrel of oil is approximately equivalent to the labour of ten men working for a year). It therefore follows, and should come as no surprise, that global economic growth over the last century has been closely mirrored by the growth in global oil consumption.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that the current global economic turmoil cannot be simply dismissed as a temporary recession. Increasingly we find ourselves in a situation where we must come to terms with the fact that oil and other non-renewable resources are indeed finite and now in decline. We can no longer afford to rely on the current profligate and totally unsustainable "exponential economic growth" model that was totally reliant on excessive resource exploitation and wasteful rampant consumerism for its success.
The time has arrived when institutions such as the WTO, World Bank, IMF, UN and, at a more local level, our own EU must recognise this new reality. In future, global society must focus on resource conservation and the putting in place of a new economic order based on the fair and frugal use of resources for the benefit of all rather than serving the interests of a powerful economic elite. This may appear a daunting challenge. However I fear failure to do this could have seriously catastrophic consequences for all our futures. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN HENEY,
Kilfeacle,
Co Tipperary