Trans Pacific Partnership negotiators missed the opportunity to dangle the "carrot of free trade" as a means to increase regional sustainable development, according to University of Auckland Business School senior economics lecturer Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy.
A series of TPP fact sheets and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) described the environmental chapter as the most "comprehensive" New Zealand has achieved in a free trade agreement.
However, Greenaway-McGrevy says: "The elephant in the room, but not in the agreement, is climate change. The fact sheets put out by MFAT and the United States Trade Representative pay lip service to the issue but there is no binding commitment embedded in the agreement to tackle climate change."
The term "climate change" didn't appear once in the controversial 6,147-page agreement signed by 12 Pacific Rim countries, including the United States, on February 4, 2016. It is yet to be entered into force through domestic legislation.
According to the Global Carbon Atlas, a large proportion of TPP signatories are top 20 CO2 emitters. The United States is the world's second largest CO2 emitter ¬followed by Japan (5), Canada (11) and Australia (16).
"Trade agreements have the potential to be effective instruments in fighting climate change. The broad-based multilateral climate talks, run under the auspices of the United Nations, are perennial disappointments. The carrots the United Nations has on offer are clearly not enough for the developing world," Greenaway-McGrevy says.
"The carrot of free trade is a far bigger prize. The emerging nations of the TPP are the ones expected to gain the most from the agreement through unfettered access to affluent markets."
Meanwhile, economics associate professor Robert Scollay suggests that "climate change" may not be directly mentioned - but the TPP does tackle the global environmental issue.
"The words 'climate change' do not appear - no doubt a recognition of the controversy over this issue in the United States Congress, which ultimately must approve the TPP before it can become operational," Scollay says.
"Instead there is a requirement for the parties to co-operate in the 'transition to a low emissions economy', one of several environmental objectives on which the agreement obliges the parties to co-operate.
"The TPP environment chapter contains extensive provisions reinforcing and, in some cases, amplifying commitments under existing multilateral environmental agreements."
"Members are expected to 'strive' to ensure their environmental laws and policies provide high and increasing levels of environmental protection and there are binding requirements for effective enforcement of those laws."
However, Greenaway-McGrevy says: "If you believe climate change requires global action, the issue needs to be directly addressed."
"Unless trade agreements explicitly recognise the problem, international trade can undermine domestic climate change policy. Europe has been the most responsible global citizen with regard to climate change.
"But by increasing the price of carbon emissions at home, they have pushed many of their dirty industries overseas - to emerging economies with substantially lower regard for sustainable production."
This, Greenaway-McGrevy says, has led to a "sad irony" that strict domestic policies in Europe have contributed to unsustainable development in China and other emerging countries.
Scollay points out developing countries are more focused on general economic development:
"Developing countries have also routinely argued it is unreasonable to expect them to apply the same environmental standards as developed countries, given their vastly different levels of development and the resulting differences in their ordering of priorities in pursuing improved environmental outcomes.
"These developing country concerns are reflected in the TPP in language stressing environmental laws or measures should not be used as disguised instruments of protectionism; it also notes the sovereign right of each party to establish its own environmental priorities and to design its laws and policies accordingly."
Greenaway-McGrevy agrees developed and emerging economies do not see eye-to-eye on sustainability, with the latter pushing for the right to develop in much the same way developed nations have - the "carbon-dependent way".