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Cross-cutting Issues

Trade and Climate Change

Since 1999, the IISD has explored the linkages between trade, investment and climate change. Our work continues to focus on defining areas of linkage: identifying ways in which trade and investment policies might support the objectives of addressing climate change and identifying areas of potential conflict among the regimes.

IISD’s current work focuses on the issues of competitiveness and leakage; investment; and green industrial policy (including subsidies for green technologies). That work, carried out under the umbrella of IISD’s TRI–CC (Trade, Investment and Climate Change) Project, is supported by the governments of Norway and Sweden, and by the MISTRA Foundation’s ENTWINED Program.

IISD’s rich body of research and policy recommendations to date can be grouped into six key areas:

• Climate Change, Competitiveness and Leakage

• Liberalizing Trade in Low-carbon Goods

• Investment and Climate Change

• Climate Change, Trade and Intellectual Property Rights

• Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Climate Change

• Green Industrial Policy

This research, sparked by the groundbreaking trade ministerial meeting on the margins of 2007 UNFCCC COP 13 in Indonesia, provides a solid platform for informed policy-making on both climate change and trade policy.

Contents

• TRI–CC (Trade, Investment and Climate Change) Project
  IISD’s current suite of work on trade, investment and climate change focuses on three broad areas: competitiveness and leakage; investment; and green industrial policy (including subsidies for green technologies).

• Bali to Copenhagen Project
  A two-year program of research, analysis and networking on the issues of trade and climate change, covering border carbon adjustment, subsidies, investment, intellectual property rights and liberalization of low-carbon goods and services.

• Trade and Climate Change Matrix
  A user-friendly directory that covers the major issues at the intersection of trade and climate change. Each section contains a brief overview, an outline of key issues, its relationship to WTO Agreements and further suggested readings.

• Copenhagen Meeting on Trade and Climate Change
  Extensive background and summary materials from a June 2008 meeting in Copenhagen, designed to further the understanding of trade and climate change linkages.

• Bali Trade Ministerial on Trade and Climate Change
  Materials from the pioneering Bali meeting of trade ministers on the margins of UNFCCC's COP-13 in December 2007.

• Outside Trade and Climate Change Work
  A collection of various publications released outside of IISD, and therefore not available in the IISD Publications Database.

For more information on IISD's work in this area, please contact Aaron Cosbey.