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Outside Trade and Climate Change Work

Most of IISD's publications on trade and climate change linkages can be found here, in IISD's Publications Centre. IISD's work has also been published outside the Institute; a selection of work not found in the IISD publications Centre is listed below.

• Border Carbon Adjustment and Free Allowances: Responding to Competitiveness and Leakage Concerns (PDF - 863 kb)
  Competitiveness and leakage concerns arise when countries implement climate change policies and measures (PAMs) that other countries do not, or when PAMs differ between countries. These discrepancies lead to different costs for producers, and to concerns that production of goods will relocate to other countries. Such concerns have been sufficient to dilute or even derail proposed environmental policies and measures in the past. This paper explores two of the tools proposed to deal with those concerns: border carbon adjustment and free allowances.

• Unpacking the Wonder Tool: Border Charges in Support of Climate Change. Bridges (ICTSD) Vol. 11, no. 7, November-December 2007 (PDF - 81 kb)
  Border tax adjustments and variations on the basic theme have been proposed for years as ways to address competitiveness issues when undertaking climate change policies. This article asks the following questions: Are such measures WTO-legal? Are they administratively feasible? And what would be their broader impacts on the process of international climate change agreement?

• Harnessing Globalization: Scaling Up Trade and Investment Policy's Contribution to Climate Change Efforts (PDF - 115 kb)
  This paper was produced as a scoping document for the Seoul, Santiago and Mexico high-level regional sessions on Scaling Up Clean Investment as part of the Gleneagles Dialogue process, July 2007. It discusses four areas in which trade and investment policy might make contributions to climate change objectives: investment law, environmental goods and services negotiations, non-actionable subsidies for the environment and fossil fuel subsidies.

• Can Private Investment Deliver on MEA Objectives? The Example of the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism
  (PDF - 74 kb)
  This paper was prepared for the OECD workshop Multilateral Environmental Agreements and Private Investment: Promoting Business Contribution to Addressing Global Environmental Problems, Helsinki, June 16–17, 2005. It describes the Kyoto Protocol's CDM as a pioneering experiment to involve the private sector in achieving the objectives of a multilateral environmental agreement.

• Implications, Including for Development, of the Interface between Environment and Trade Policies for Oil Exporting Countries. Geneva: UNCTAD, August 2003 (PDF - 155 kb)
  Chapter 4 of this longer document, extracted here, deals in some depth with the legal interface between trade and investment rules and the types of policies and measures that countries might undertake to address climate change.

• The Kyoto Protocol and the WTO: Report of a seminar organized by IISD and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, December 1, 1999, Seattle. Winnipeg: IISD/Chatham House, 2000 (PDF - 163 kb)
  This is a synopsis of discussions held at a meeting convened on the fringes of the WTO's Seattle Ministerial. The meeting addresses the various ways in which climate change and trade are linked. It concludes that on most issues, there is no immediate threat of clash, provided the potential for clash is understood and addressed.

• Trade Implications of the Kyoto Protocol Policy Matters, newsletter of the IUCN Commission for Environmental, Economic and Social Policy, Issue No. 4, Spring 1999 (PDF - 186 kb)
  This article describes some of the likely areas of conflict between WTO rules and policies and measures that countries might undertake to address climate change.

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