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Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal has said that unilateral environmental measures such as the European Union's (EU) carbon tax do not reflect the principles of equity and hamper equitable world trade. He said the Global South countries are facing challenges both in terms of developing climate and sustainable development strategies and responding to unilateral measures such as CBAM (carbon border adjustment mechanism). The Global South countries include both developing and least developed nations (LDCs).

He said India has on different platforms raised its concerns over the EU's decision to impose carbon tax on certain sectors as it would hurt the country's exports. The country is in discussions with the EU on the subject. The EU has decided to impose a CBAM, or carbon tax, which will come into effect from January 1, 2026. Initially, it would be imposed on seven carbon-intensive sectors, including steel, cement, fertiliser, aluminium and hydrocarbon products.

The secretary also said that Global South countries need to increase cooperation in areas of food security and global value chains; address challenges faced by MSMEs and also the challenges posed by the current international trading system. He advocated for investments in advanced manufacturing while also nurturing a workforce with requisite skills to take up high end manufacturing as it is crucial for developing and least-developed countries (LDCs) to move up the value chain. On services exports, he said that developing countries account for 24 per cent of global services trade and LDCs share is only 0.61 per cent.