Ministry Statements & Speeches:
We, the Ministers for Trade for Costa Rica, Iceland, New Zealand, and Switzerland, as signatories to the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability (ACCTS), met at the OECD Ministerial Conference in Paris on 3 June 2025.
ACCTS is a practical demonstration of our shared commitment to the objective of sustainable development, as stated in the Preamble to the Marrakesh Agreement. In particular, ACCTS contributes to upgrading international trade policy, addresses climate change and other serious environmental challenges, and promotes sustainable development, advancing mutually supportive trade and environmental policies.
On this occasion, we welcomed the progress made in our ongoing work to bring ACCTS into force as soon as possible.
We affirmed that ACCTS is open to accession by any WTO Member, in line with the following principles:
- Readiness to fully comply with the high standards of ACCTS;
- A demonstrated pattern of compliance with trade, climate change and sustainability-related commitments; and
- Recognition that decisions on accession are subject to consensus of ACCTS Parties.
We will champion an accession process that reinforces ACCTS’ place as a dynamic pathfinder agreement, and through which the overall objectives of ACCTS can continue to be realised and expanded.
In seeking to accede to ACCTS, aspirant economies should start by submitting a request in writing to New Zealand as ACCTS Depository, including information regarding the aspirant’s ability to meet the principles outlined above.
At a time of significant challenges for international trade and rising uncertainty, we reaffirmed the shared commitment of ACCTS signatories to upholding the rules-based multilateral trading system, with the WTO at its core, and strongly encouraged other WTO members that share our ambition, to join ACCTS and reinforce the mutual supportiveness between trade, climate and sustainability objectives.