Washington and Brussels jointly proposed that all 151 members of the WTO cut tariffs on at least 43 types of environmentally-friendly goods and services in order to boost their use worldwide.

"By eliminating tariff and non-tariff barriers to environmental goods and services, particularly clean energy technologies, we can lower their costs and increase global access to and use of these important products," US trade representative Susan Schwab said in a statement.

"By making it cheaper and easier to trade in these goods and services the proposal would help to spread green technologies globally, especially to industrialising developing countries," the EU said in its own statement.

"Other products with a clear environmental benefit, for example goods related to waste water management and potable water treatment, waste management, and air pollution control could be added to this list," the EU said.

The two trading powers also proposed a new WTO agreement to further open trade in green goods and services, on the basis of a complete list of environmental goods submitted by the EU and other WTO members earlier in the year.

The US said that global trade in the goods covered by the proposal amounted to around 613 billion dollars (417 billion euros) in 2006, with exports growing by an average of 15 percent per annum since 2000.

A recent World Bank study claimed that removing tariff and non-tariff barriers on key clean energy technologies could increase trade by between 7-14 percent annually.

"A corresponding increase in use of such technologies and services could contribute importantly to global efforts to address climate change and energy security," the US said.

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