THE TTALK QUOTES 

On Global Trade & Investment

 

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No. 87 of 2014 

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2014     

 

   

Filed from Portland, Oregon  

     

Click here for the December 16 quote on the RMB.
THE EGA, PART IV - GE, A WTO NEGOTIATION

"Of the 54 products that were on the APEC list [of environmental goods], we make 49 of them."

AND  A COMPANY INITIATIVE

"Since 2005, Ecomagination has really become the company's most successful cross-company initiative.  We have invested over $15 billion in R&D and generated more than $160 billion in sales of our Ecomagination products."

Orit Frenkel
November 20, 2014

CONTEXT
Orit Frenkel is the Senior Manager for International Trade and Investment with the General Electric Company.  On November 20, Ms. Frenkel spoke at an environment and trade event in Washington.  Today's quotes were taken from that event. 

This was "A Double Opportunity: The WTO Environmental Goods Agreement."   Held at the National Press Club, it was a joint project between the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the Global Business Dialogue.   There were two government speakers and two from the private sector.  Linda Dempsey,  NAM's Vice President for International Economic Affairs, set the stage for the discussion and served as moderator. 

Because the topic was the EGA, the first of today's two featured quotes deals directly with those negotiations.  Like every other speaker on November 20, Ms. Frenkel talked about the product list.  Its core is a group of 54 environmentally related goods that had been identified in APEC for tariff reductions by the APEC countries - reductions but not elimination, which is the goal of the EGA. As Ms. Frenkel noted, GE makes 49 of those products - including wind turbines and solar panels.  As she explained:

"I think that 60 percent of the WTO countries impose a mean tariff of 7.4 percent on wind turbines.  Over 40 percent impose a tariff of 8.8 percent or higher on solar panels."

But also like others on the panel, she would like to see the APEC list expanded.  Why? Because there are lots of other things GE makes that are good for the environment but not yet on the EGA negotiating list.

Durathon batteries are in that group.  These are industrial batteries that store energy.  They are a hand-and-glove product for wind turbines, for example, because wind energy is erratic.  When the wind is blowing, there is more energy than the system can use, and when it is not blowing, well, no energy is produced.  Durathon batteries can smooth that cycle out.

Other products Ms. Frenkel mentioned are off-grid reciprocating engines that can run on a variety of fuels, smart meters that optimize energy usage in larger systems, and various other products from fuel efficient locomotives to aircraft engines that can run on biofuel, which GE is now testing.

All of this begs the question, what will the final EGA list look like?  Clearly it is still being negotiated.  According to a recent Politico article, the 14 countries negotiating the EGA decided on a list of categories for the EGA products earlier this month.  They have not settled on a product list, but they have agreed on ten broad categories.  The categories are:

air pollution control;
solid and hazardous waste management;
wastewater management and water treatment;
environmental remediation and clean-up;
noise and vibration suppressors;
clean and renewable energy;
energy efficiency;
environmental monitoring;
analysis and assessment;
resource efficiency and "environmentally preferable products."

We are not sure when the EGA negotiators will settle on an initial list of products to be negotiated, but one speaker last month suggested that milestone might be achieved in the first half of 2015.

***

But let's step back up a moment.  The EGA - the Geneva process - has been going on for just half a year. The first round of talks was held this past July.  GE's commitment to the environment has a longer history, a history in which 2005 was a watershed year.
Ms. Frenkel put it this way:

"In 2005 actually, our chairman [Jeffrey Immelt] had a lot of foresight and started a new initiative that really is the double opportunity.  We call that [initiative] Ecomagination.    You've probably seen all of our nice commercials.  ... He really took a leap by thinking that going green was going to both help the environment and be good business.  So he committed to invest R&D and launch a whole lot of new solutions that were going to save money and reduce the environmental impact for our customers." 

GE, of course, is one of the world's largest companies, with some 300,000 employees worldwide and revenues last year (2013) of $146 billion.  Here is Ms. Frenkel on what Ecomagination has meant:

"Since 2005, Ecomagination has really become the company's most successful cross-company initiative.  We've invested over 15 billion in R&D and generated more than $160 billion in sales of our Ecomagination products.  We've also made it part of our operations.  We've  reduced our own internal greenhouse gas emissions by 32 percent and our fresh water use by almost half."

COMMENT
"Motherhood and apple pie."  It's an old American political expression, but you don't hear it too much anymore.  It used to refer to things that everyone could agree on, everyone being American politicians of all stripes.  Apple pie is still pretty safe as political topics go; not so motherhood, which has become one of those very divisive social issues in U.S. politics.

Is environmentalism the new motherhood?  Not really.  Cast in some lights, it can be as divisive as any issue around.  And yet, as expressed in the EGA categories - as simply a means for using the precious commodities of air, water and energy more efficiently - it can and should be a unifying concept.  So we hope these talks can move quickly and relatively smoothly.  They can, and they should.  We'll go one step further.  Unless someone  decides to make the EGA talks hostage to rhetoric of one stripe or another, an Environmental Goods Agreement will be one of the solid achievements of the Obama administration.  

***

Whatever happen, we expect to follow the EGA in these pages.  It is unlikely, however, that we will be brining you any more quotes from our EGA event on November 20, 2014.  So we will close out that episode here with a heartfelt thank you to Orit Frenkel, Jennifer Prescott, Debra Waggoner, and especially to Linda Dempsey and the National Association of Manufacturers for being our partners in this project.     
SOURCES & LINKS
Audio File from "A Double Opportunity."  This takes you to an MP3 recording of this November 20 event, including the remarks by Orit Frenkel.  This was the source for today's quotes.

Ecomagination is a page from the GE website devoted to this concept and the projects that flow from it.

Categories in Politico is a link to Politico's Morning Trade for December 22, which was the source for the EGA category list above.

Energy Storage is a web page devoted to products in this category, including Durathon Batteries.

GE and Renewable Energy is a link to a GE web page with information on the company's products in this category, including those for harnessing wind and solar energy.

Also from A Double Opportunity were the TTALK Quotes from November 25 (Jennifer Prescott), December 2 (Simon Newnham),  and December 8 (Debra Waggoner).
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