"A healthy environment is essential to building prosperous and resilient economies. This is one key reason why we need to bring the trade and environmental agendas closer together. Today's dialogue is an important step in that direction. Trade is a powerful tool to make green technologies more affordable and to help sustainable business expand. I look forward to continuing working alongside all stakeholders, including the private sector, to ensure that trade delivers benefits for people and the environment everywhere," WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo said.

Mr Solheim in turn highlighted the essential role trade plays to support long-term green solutions that are beneficial for the economy and job creation as well as the environment.

"We already have many champions and pioneers that are showing us every day how the economy of the future can work. Innovation can help us overcome environmental challenges. We must do everything we can to support these frontrunners to unlock trade in green sectors and move us towards more sustainable ways of consuming and producing. When we do this, we will find huge opportunities for prosperity and jobs," Mr Solheim said.

Panellists called for trade policies that support the widespread dissemination of environmentally friendly technologies such as those needed for renewable energy. Noting that "protection of the environment is profitable", Bertrand Piccard, the visionary behind the first solar-powered plane to circumnavigate the world, highlighted the role that the WTO could play in supporting the dissemination of profitable, clean and efficient technologies, which need to be better known, brought to market and implemented widely.

Jérôme Pécresse, GE Renewable Energy CEO, said that free trade is critical to the cost competitiveness of renewable energy: "We are at a point where people do new renewable energy projects not because it is good for the planet, but because it is a rational economic decision. To keep along this path, we need to continue to be able to leverage efficiently our global supply chains. Things like tariffs and local content requirements will hinder our ability to keep pushing down the costs of wind and solar energy and are going to limit the planet's ability to move towards the Paris Agreement targets."

Aisa Mijeno, co-founder and CEO of SALt (Sustainable Alternative Lighting Group), said duty-free imports are vital for her start-up enterprise in the Philippines and that they were exploring the possibility of extracting hard-to-source materials from scrap circuit boards. Lucia Bakulumpagi-Wamala, CEO & founder of Bakulu Power in Uganda, noted the importance of open trade policies for renewable energy technologies, while emphasizing that electrification was key in helping local communities participate in trade.

Panellists also debated approaches to eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. For Kimmo Tiilikainen, Finland Minister of the Environment, Energy and Housing,  efforts are needed to level the playing field by putting a price on carbon in order to make environmental alternatives more viable. He also highlighted the role of trade in supporting new business models that create value by redesigning and optimizing products for multiple cycles of use, in line with a circular economy. As a first step, he encouraged WTO members to fully realize that the shift to a circular economy was unavoidable.

The discussion further emphasized the wide leeway governments have in the face of WTO rules to implement sound regulations that protect the environment.

The event also featured the launch of a co-publication by the WTO Secretariat and UN Environment titled "Making trade work for the environment, prosperity and resilience." The event also drew attention to the new WTO Environmental Database, an online tool that compiles almost 20 years of information from environment-related notifications and Trade Policy Reviews of WTO members. A sustainability exhibition of green innovations was also opened on the same day as part of the Public Forum. These efforts follow the announcement by DG Azevêdo and Mr Solheim in January of a joint initiative to bring the trade and environmental agenda closer together.