In the face of mounting global environmental challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, and increasing focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) awareness, sustainable trade practices and supply chains have the potential to radically transform Africa’s economic future.

From green logistics to fair trade and circular economy principles, sustainable trade practices have a significant positive impact on global and local trade. In addition to environmental benefits, they enhance market competitiveness and open access to new markets that value a commitment to sustainability.

However, the transition to eco-friendly and sustainable supply chains is reliant on several factors, not least a significant investment in the infrastructure and technology needed to streamline port and customs operations and ensure a smooth entry of goods into the country in question. An understanding of the importance of digital transformation by governments and regulatory bodies is also a key factor in adopting digital solutions over more traditional manual systems.

African countries that understand and embrace these requirements are well on their way to laying the groundwork for sustainable trade practices.

As an example, the port of Cotonou in the West African country of Benin handles an average of 80 to 90 merchant vessels monthly. According to the African Development Bank, Cotonou deals with 90 percent of the country’s international trade, serving up to 100 million consumers. In 2022, the port handled 12.5 million tonnes of goods, a figure that is predicted to almost double by 2038, reaching 23 million tonnes.

In a gesture of confidence, the recent extension of an €80 million loan by the African Development Bank for significant infrastructure upgrades will expand the port’s operations even further. Yet despite the vast and complicated operations of one of Africa’s busiest ports, Benin has jumped to 66th place on the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index, an astonishing leap of approximately 100 places in just under a decade, positioning the country as West Africa’s key trade hub.

But this wasn’t always the case. High shipping costs, low efficiency, and poor logistical facilities threatened to stifle any hopes the port had of becoming a key trade route, despite the fact that the country is a crucial transit route for West Africa, connecting millions of people in the landlocked countries of Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, and the northern regions of Nigeria.

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The solution? Leveraging technology to break through the complexities, inefficiencies, and obstacles impeding effective trade, and transform Benin into an economically competitive trade hub.

This is a story that replicates itself in trade ports along Africa’s entire coastline. Operators and customs entities are constantly looking for ways in which to alleviate the backlogs and delays caused by the high volumes flowing through these trade entry points, and digitisation, along with improved physical infrastructure, is proving to be an extremely effective solution. Partnerships and collaborations with specialist service providers hold the key to success.

The Webb Fontaine and Benin story
Backtracking from the current situation, and highlighting the importance of long-term public-private collaborations in modernising and streamlining trade landscapes, Webb Fontaine started working with Benin’s Ministry of Finance and Benin Control in 2017. Implementing a suite of innovative solutions including Webb Single Window, Webb Transit Tracking, Webb Valuation, Webb Ports, and Webb Customs, we are proud to be playing a pivotal role in transforming trade in the country.

Webb Single Window has been a game changer. It forms the basis of GUCE Benin, a digital platform with over 6,500 users in the logistics chain that facilitates import, export, and transit operations, and incorporates electronic payment via Paylican, Webb Fontaine’s official payments partner. Webb Single Window has also automated the processing of key administrative operations like issuing licenses and authorisations, overseeing currency exchange operations, managing exemptions, and communicating with tax services.

In practical terms, this means streamlining the process needed to get containers out of the port. Digitising processes to create efficiencies, using new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), reduces the time spent on clearance of goods, for both customs brokers and administrators. Benin now ranks as West Africa’s top port and holds the third-highest rating in Africa behind Egypt and South Africa. Release times have been reduced by 30%, with a remarkable 50% of containers being released within only two days.

Along with operational efficiency at the ports themselves, economic growth is a key benefit. From digital skills development to higher revenues as a result of streamlined operations, technology is playing a crucial role. For example, reducing the clearance time from 47 days to only a few days allows for more cycles of importation, increasing tax revenue and creating a healthy economic cycle. This also attracts foreign direct investment, making the port more attractive for investors and traders.

However, the use of technology in port operations is just one aspect in a larger framework of sustainable trade. The resultant benefits, such as automated systems and data analytics have the potential to lead to more efficient operations, reduced emissions, and less waste, which are all key components of sustainable trade practices. For instance, quicker turnaround times not only reduce the carbon footprint of shipping and logistics operations, but they also reduce the need for extended storage, in turn decreasing energy consumption and waste.

Is Africa ready for sustainable and eco-friendly supply chains?
Despite the challenges faced by African countries, many are making great strides. Togo’s new container platform, Nigeria’s planned green port, Liberia’s green economy reforms – all are notable examples. Yet much still needs to be done to fully embrace the digital transformation journey, while at the same time addressing issues like infrastructure development.

All stakeholders have a role to play in implementing sustainable and eco-friendly trade practices and policies. African governments, for instance, can make a commitment to investing the funds and resources needed to create infrastructure that will support both trade and digital advancements, as well as support sustainability initiatives. The African Continental Free Trade Area can play a crucial role in developing a standardised approach to these issues, based on learnings from other countries on the continent.

Africa is a continent that has immense potential when it comes to creating and maintaining sustainable trade practices that will drive economic growth. The continent’s success stories demonstrate this, and serve as a call to governments, industry stakeholders, policymakers and the private sector to work together to find tangible solutions that will promote further growth and development. Webb Fontaine is already playing a crucial role in supporting Africa’s governments on their trade facilitation journeys, with specialised port technology that is securing customs revenue, mitigating trade fraud, and streamlining clearance times. In the same way, when all stakeholders collaborate and contribute to improvements in their respective areas, Africa’s economies will reap the collective rewards.

To read the article as it was published on the CIO Africa webpage, click here.

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The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognizes international trade as an engine for inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction, and an important means to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Removing barriers to trade in green goods and services could add further momentum to the clean energy transformation unfolding right before us. Adam Wolff, Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO)”

International trade has a critical role to play in environmental protection and the effort to mitigate climate change. According to Adam Wolff, trade policies are powerful tools to increase resource efficiency, scale-up investment in clean and resilient infrastructure, and accelerate climate-friendly innovation. They also unlock the USD 26 trillion in market opportunities that would result from bold climate action by 2030.

The WTO indicates that renewable energy, solar photovoltaic and wind power have become the cheapest sources of electricity in many markets. In addition, new renewable power capacity has outpaced new fossil fuel power capacity for the past seven years. In 2019 alone, renewables accounted for nearly three quarters of new power capacity globally. Furthermore, employment in this sector, which reached 11 million jobs worldwide in 2018, is expected to quadruple by 2050, while jobs in energy efficiency and related areas could grow by another 40 million.

According to the International Trade Centre (ITC), global concern about environmental issues is also driving a growing market for sustainably sourced natural resource based products. Conscious consumers are demanding more evidence of production supporting “fair” and “ethical” practices in the value chain and, globally, this market is worth around USD 50 billion. The certified natural resource based product market is driving reductions in poverty as production is often labour intensive and premium prices reach smallholder producers who make up the bulk of the rural poor. The trade is also generating environmental benefits like carbon sequestration in soils and timber, forest preservation, decreased pesticide use and net biodiversity gains.

In wildlife, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), aims to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. There are several appendixes listing different species and their trade regulations.

The Role of Geneva

World Trade Organization (WTO)

Through its goals, rules, institutions and forward-looking agenda, the World Trade Organization (WTO) provides an important means of advancing international environmental goals. The Trade and Environment Committee (CTE) of the WTO is the standing forum dedicated to dialogue between governments on the impact of trade policies on the environment, and of environment policies on trade. Under the Doha Development Agenda, the regular committee is also looking at the effects of environmental measures on market access, the intellectual property agreement and biodiversity, and labeling for environmental purposes. In this context, a series of Ministerial Statements on environmental issues – specifically on trade and environmental sustainability, plastic pollution and fossil fuel subsidies – were launched in December 2021.

In June 2022, the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12) marked a important milestone, as governments recognized the important role of multilateral trade to address environmental challenges. Members also adopted an unprecedented agreement on fisheries subsidies after more than twenty years of negotiations.

For the Agreement to enter into force, two-thirds of WTO members must formally accept the amendment Protocol to insert the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies into Annex 1A of the WTO Agreement, by depositing an “instrument of acceptance” with the WTO. As of December 2023, twenty-nine WTO members formally submitted their acceptance of the agreement: Albania, Australia, Belize, Botswana, Cabo Verde, Canada, Chile, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, European Union, Fiji Gabon, Hong Kong (China), Iceland, Japan, Korea (Republic of), Macao (China), New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Saint Lucia, Seychelles, Singapore, Switzerland, The Gambia, Ukraine, United Arabs Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States.

Information for members on how to accept the Protocol of Ammendment can be found on the WTO website.

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is is an international agreement between governments. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. Because the trade in wild animals and plants crosses borders between countries, the effort to regulate it requires international cooperation to safeguard certain species from over-exploitation. CITES accords varying degrees of protection to more than 37,000 species of animals and plants, whether they are traded as live specimens, fur coats or dried herbs. In addition, CITES has been among the conservation agreements with the largest membership, with 183 Parties.

International Trade Centre (ITC)

Established in 1964, the International Trade Centre (ITC) is the joint agency of the WTO and the UN and is the only development agency that is fully dedicated to supporting the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The Trade and Environment Programme (TEP) of ITC strengthens the capacity of SMEs in developing countries to compete in environmental markets and to overcome barriers that might result from environment-related standards. The programme also addresses challenges relating to climate resilience and biodiversity loss. ITC provides analysis and support in different global value chains including agri-food, natural products, fibres and leathers.

ITC’s Trade for Sustainable Development (T4SD) is a partnership-based programme which helps businesses, regardless of their position in the value chain, chart their path to more sustainable trade by better understanding the sustainability initiatives landscape and to connect with business partners. T4SD’s new platform, Sustainability Map, also integrates the already well-established tools such as Standards Map and SustainabilityXchange to the new interconnected modules.

ITC also works to boost Fairtrade and environmental exports of developing countries, including exports of cultural, ethnic and organic products. ITC supports biodiversity, enables exporters to adapt to climate change and targets increased use of green technologies.

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is a permanent intergovernmental body established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1964. UNCTAD’s work on harnessing international trade in promoting sustained growth and inclusive development includes as a key aspect, support to developing countries in taking advantages of emerging opportunities for trade associated with the protection, promotion and preservation of the environment and sustainable development objectives generally, while minimizing potential adverse impacts. This work is carried out by the Trade, Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development Branch of the Division on International Trade and Commodities.

Since its launch by UNCTAD in 1996, the BioTrade Initiative has been promoting sustainable BioTrade in support of the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity. UNCTAD is currently implementing the Global BioTrade Programme: Linking trade, biodiversity and sustainable development with the support of the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO. The objective of this four-year programme is to provide key stakeholders with the ability to size and capitalize on trade opportunities from linking biodiversity and sustainable development, thereby advancing the implementation of the SDGs, as well as the Aichi Targets and the Post Aichi framework.

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s (UNECE) major aim is to promote pan-European economic integration, including on aspects related to trade and sustainable development. UNECE initiatives at this nexus include support to the garment and footwear sector to improve traceability and sustainability, harnessing trade and economic cooperation for circular economy, and implementation of the sustainable trade and circular economy principles in SPECA countries.

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

The Resources and Markets Branch of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) works to accelerate the transition to resource-efficient and sustainable economies. It engages with governments in their transition to inclusive green economies, fosters partnerships with business and industry for cleaner production and green investments, influences consumer information and choice for sustainable lifestyles, and strengthens and communicates the knowledge and scientific base for resource efficiency and sustainable consumption and production.

The Economic and Trade Policy Unit conducts research and provides capacity building support and advisory services to enable the transition to inclusive and green economies. The unit analyzes the roles of fiscal, trade, and industrial policies in enabling an economic transformation.

One of the work streams of the unit is the Environment and Trade Hub, serving as the overarching delivery mechanism for UNEP’s work on trade. Through research, capacity building and policy advisory services, the Hub provides tailored support to countries seeking to leverage trade and investment as vehicles for achieving the SDGs and their Paris Agreement commitments.

Forum on Trade, Environment & the SDGs (TESS)

The Forum on Trade, Environment & the SDGs (TESS) is a partnership of the Graduate Institute and UNEP, which core mission is to promote multilateral dialogue and action on trade policies that address urgent global environmental crises and advance progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It aims to catalyse policy action across the trade, environment and sustainable development communities through a versatile, needs-driven and outcome-focused toolbox of activities. Mandated to “connect, inform, analyse and empower”, the work of TESS will combine public-facing events and policy briefs; expert and stakeholder roundtables; and off-the-record consultations key to supporting international policymaking processes.

International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is an independent think tank based in Canada and Geneva working to create a world where people and the planet thrive. Its experts offer practical guidance to help authorities choose the right system of electricity generation, reduce consumption of fossil-based transport fuels, and implement international climate change commitments. The IISD Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) is widely recognized as a world-class leader in the quantification, evaluation, and reform of subsidies.

Geneva Trade Platform

The Geneva Trade Platform is a not-for-profit organization based at the Graduate Institute’s Centre for Trade and Economic Integration. The platform is a hub, designed to bring people, ideas, and resources together to address global challenges through better informed, better supported and more inclusive trade policy.

Negotiations

WTO

At the Doha Ministerial Conference in 2001, negotiations on fisheries subsidies at the WTO were launched with a mandate to clarify and improve existing WTO rules. The adoption of the SDGs in 2015 and of a negotiating mandate in 2017 gave renewed urgency to the discussions, and left the WTO with the task of securing an agreement by 2020 on disciplines to eliminate subsidies for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and to prohibit subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, with special and differential treatment for developing and least developed countries. After more than twenty years of negotiations, WTO members reached an landmark agreement at MC12 in Geneva in June 2022. Member States are now discussing to initiate a second round of negotiations to further discipline harmful fisheries subsidies.

CITES

Animal and Plants Committee

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora Plants Committee convened in Geneva for its 26th meeting (CITES AC26), from 5 to 9 June 2023. Items on the agenda included a strategic approach on CITES and Forests, preparation for the implementation of upcoming projects, and advancing the Review of Significant Trade (RST). It is to be noted that the listings of plant species in CITES Appendices have been steadily increasing in recent years and, in particular, those of tree species including those considered commercially important. Today, the number of plant species whose international trade is regulated by CITES is more than 34,000, of which 800 are tree species.

CITES Animals Committee convened in Geneva for its 32nd meeting (CITES AC32) from 19 to 23 June 2023. Issues on the agenda included review under both the Review of Significant Trade Resolution (for the review of wild species which may be subject to unsustainable levels of international trade and recommendations) and the Captive Breeding Resolution (for the review of trade in animal specimens reported as produced in captivity). Members and observers are reviewing emerging operational matters of bodog poker review the committees, alignment between the CITES Strategic Vision 2021-2030 and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, sustainability criteria, known as non-detriment findings (NDFs), and the scientific aspects of the IPBES report on the Assessment of the Sustainable Use of Wild Species.

Standing Committee

The 77th meeting of the Standing Committee will take place from 6 – 10 November 2023 in Geneva.

Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability (ACCTS)
Costa Rica, Fiji, Iceland, New Zealand and Norway have agreed to start negotiations on an ambitious, binding agreement on climate change, trade and sustainability. The countries recognize that climate change is a major problem, and are seeking to use trade rules in support of climate action. They will consider trade policy measures such as eliminating tariffs on environmental goods, establishing new commitments for environmental services, reductions in fossil-fuel subsidies, and certification/eco-labelling schemes.

Harmful Subsidies

According to the IISD, governments around the world spend at least a trillion dollars a year on subsidies to exploit the world’s natural resources.

Fisheries

Through the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), governments around the world have agreed that conserving and sustainably using the oceans, seas and marine resources is essential for sustainable development. In particular, target 14.6 acknowledges the detrimental effect of harmful subsidies and the need to eliminate them to achieve a sustainable blue economy. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 33% of the world’s fish resources are overfished and 60% are being fished to their biologically sustainable limit. According to UNCTAD, fishing subsidies are estimated to be as high as $35 billion worldwide, of which $20 billion directly contributes to overfishing. Fisheries subsidies are the main driver of the overcapacity of industrial fishing fleets and thereby overfishing – removing these harmful subsidies has become a bare-faced necessity.

“By 2020, prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies which contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, eliminate subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and refrain from introducing new such subsidies. Sustainable Development Goal 14.6”

The WTO was identified as the implementing agency to fulfill this target, recognizing that appropriate and effective special and differential treatment for developing and least developing countries should be an integral part of the WTO fisheries subsidies negotiations. After more than twenty years of negotiations, WTO members reached an agreement at MC12 in Geneva in June 2022. Under this new treaty, subsidies for vessels and operators engaged in illegal, unreported, or unregulated (IUU) fishing are prohibited. The agreement further bans support for fishing in overfished stocks and for fishing in unregulated high seas. Provisions on special and differential treatment are provided to allow flexibility for developing countries.

Fossil Fuel

IISD notes that the evidence is crystal clear that fossil fuel subsidies are environmentally harmful and undermine efforts to tackle climate change. Despite this, support for fossil fuels costs governments USD 300–600 billion every year—depending on fuel prices on the world markets—an amount that could otherwise be spent on global priorities such as health, education, social protection, and a just transition to a clean energy future. As countries struggle to support their economies in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis, it’s more important than ever to align climate ambitions with economic priorities. Governments have the opportunity to look closely at fossil fuel subsidy reform and fuel taxation as effective tools for a green recovery as they work to maintain climate commitments while generating revenue to support pressing social needs.

On 15 December 2021, the Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform launched a ministerial statement, calling for the rationalization and phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption, while taking into account the specific needs and conditions of developing countries.

Plastic Pollution

International trade flows are central to the production, consumption and disposal of plastic products. Across the life cycle of plastics, international trade is a vehicle for the spread of plastics across borders, whether as virgin plastic, embedded in products or as waste. According the UNCTAD, trade in plastics accounts for $1 trillion USD each year, which corresponds to about 5% of the total value of merchandise trade. Consequently, trade policy can play an important role in tackling the plastic pollution crisis. he challenges associated with plastic trade go are immense, with plastics being traded globally as fossil feedstock, primary material, manufactured products, and waste. The World Trade Organization has started to discuss the role of trade policy to address plastic pollution through an informal dialogue (IDP) launched in November 2020.

Plastic waste trade also posed specific challenges, especially for importing developing economies where infrastructure to manage waste in an environmentally sound manner may be lacking. In 2019, Parties to the Basel Convention adopted the Plastic Amendments, which regulate transboundary flows of plastic waste since its entry into force in 2021. The Basel Convention also promotes environmentally sound management of plastic waste through the Plastic Waste Partnership.

Coalition of Trade Ministers on Climate

A new Coalition of Trade Ministers on Climate, which aims to put climate action at the heart of trade and trade policies, was launched on 19 January 2023, in the margins of the WEF Annual Meeting 2023. The four co-leaders – trade ministers from Ecuador, the European Union, Kenya, and New Zealand – held the Coalition’s first inter-governmental meeting in Davos, along with ministers from many other countries, which was followed by a roundtable of stakeholders from international organisations, academia, business, and NGOs.

With more than 50 ministers who have joined the coalition, World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan have also offered their support.

The Coalition seeks to provide high-level leadership and guidance to boost inclusive international cooperation on the nexus of climate, trade, and sustainable development. Emphasizing the urgent need for climate change mitigation and adaptation, the Coalition aims to drive cooperation among trade ministers in the global response to climate change, including by engaging nationally and internationally with fellow ministers working on climate, environment, finance, and development, among others.

To read the full blog post as it appears on Geneva Environment Network, click here.

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Trade policy is not commonly thought of as a tool for combating climate change. After all, the proliferation of trade and global supply chains has contributed to the rise in global carbon emissions by facilitating the spread of carbon-intensive methods of production and transportation.

But trade policy presents a powerful—and largely underutilized—set of tools to help nations combat climate change. Trade policy has already raised environmental standards and broadly improved environmental enforcement, but the larger climate community is just beginning to understand the full potential of climate-focused trade tools.

Building on a new report from the World Trade Organization (WTO) presented at COP27 last month, my team and I propose three broad areas where trade policy can help advance and re-enforce global climate goals to achieve a net-zero future by 2050.

First, trade policy is critical to creating a global economic environment that supports green technology transfer and environmental innovation.

We need an ambitious environmental goods agreement to help reduce the price of clean technologies and make them more readily available across the developed and developing worlds. Such an agreement would aggressively target existing barriers to trade, starting with eliminating tariffs on environmental goods, like solar panels, wind turbines and heat pumps.

In the mid-2010s, the WTO negotiated but never concluded such an environmental goods deal. We suggest reviving the efforts despite significant institutional barriers, including difficulty defining the scope of environmental goods and concerns around the free-rider problem. Without a baseline deal, it will be difficult to achieve more novel and ambitious trade and climate arrangements.

Moreover, we need trade measures to promote and protect innovation that will support green technology transfer in the long term. For truly sustainable tech transfer, developed and developing nations need to foster an economic environment together where companies are willing to invest in climate innovation around the world.

One major obstacle is innovators’ legitimate concern that technology transfer leaves them vulnerable to intellectual property (IP) theft. Countries must determine whether the IP commitments in existing free trade agreements need to be updated to support green technology transfer and design new trade agreements to protect cleantech IP rights from the start.

Without a forward-leaning IP regime, developed countries will continue to see cutting-edge investments while developing partners receive less effective last-generation technologies.

Second, countries can use trade policies to address the inevitable material shortages and moral tradeoffs that accompany the green energy transition. Large-scale decarbonization entails many risks, ranging from shortages of the critical minerals needed to make clean technologies like electric vehicle batteries to ethical concerns about forced labor and ecological degradation.

Trade can help ameliorate these risks. Countries can use trade policies to advance the principles of circular economy, chiefly through the creation of robust reverse supply chains that support trade in recyclable and partially recycled products.

Designing trade tools that promote traceability and transparency can ensure recyclable products are recovered safely and efficiently to compete with mined virgin materials and keep trash out of the supply chain.

Countries can also prioritize joining trade regimes that promote high labor and environmental standards, such as the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement.

Finally, countries can use trade policy to hold each other accountable for meeting global climate goals.

It is currently cheaper to produce goods in countries with lower environmental standards, giving industries located in those nations a competitive advantage. These market dynamics encourage “environmental arbitrage,” where companies shift production from countries with high standards to countries with lower standards, leading to an overall increase in carbon emissions.

Environmental arbitrage also makes it impossible for consumers to understand and pay for the true cost of pollution.

Countries can counteract this dynamic using a trade policy called carbon border adjustment (CBA), a tax system for adjusting the price of imported goods at the border based on emissions when and where they were made.

By pricing the hidden differences and leveling the playing field between producers, CBAs eliminate the economic incentives for environmental arbitrage.

The widespread adoption of CBAs, ideally through an international carbon club like the one considered within the G7, also creates the opportunity for additional incentive structures to promote decarbonization. Agreements could allow developing countries, for example, to forgo CBA taxes if they agree to invest an equivalent amount of money in climate mitigation and resilience.

To read the full piece, please click here.

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Amid these divisions, climate negotiations are entering a new and challenging phase. Many countries need to do more to lower greenhouse gas emissions to keep the targets in the 2015 Paris agreement alive. At COP26 in Glasgow last year, the participating countries agreed to step up their commitments on climate action (nationally determined contributions, or NDCs) before COP27. Few have done so. Countries have pledged to develop closer scrutiny of national measures to implement reductions, but agreement on how is likely to prove contentious. Disagreements are also becoming increasingly fraught over the degree to which wealthy countries should pay for climate-related harms in the developing world.

Against this background, questions arise about whether the multilateral track on climate can deliver at the required scale. Some European policymakers doubt the Paris agreement could be signed today and wonder if its approach needs to be reviewed in a more competitive and distrustful world.[1] European policymakers are increasingly looking to supplement the UNFCCC’s collective approach with further initiatives developed among smaller groups of like-minded states, such as the Breakthrough Agenda (a UK-led clean technology initiative signed by the European Union and 41 states) and the ‘climate club’ Germany has put forward during its presidency of the G7.

By mixing collective and like-minded initiatives on climate, Europeans are adopting the kind of twin-track strategy on multilateral cooperation that ECFR has recommended in previous publications. Such a strategy, we argued, should aim to preserve the space for collective processes as far as possible, given their reach and legitimacy, but seek to complement them with more far-reaching initiatives by smaller groups of states. To contribute to global solutions, like-minded initiatives should not undermine wider institutions and should be open to any country that accepts their ground rules, regardless of wider ideology.

This policy brief explores how Europeans can best pursue a twin-track strategy in climate policy. It examines the barriers to progress within the UNFCCC process and other broad-based multilateral forums, as well as their continued relevance and importance. Since the signing of the Paris agreement, the drivers for action to limit greenhouse gas emissions have shifted significantly, thereby changing how international policy can best support the agreement. The paper outlines the steps that the EU and its member states should take with like-minded partners to promote international action on climate change, and how they could fit within the wider multilateral framework.

Climate change and Multilateralism

Climate change is the archetypal global challenge, as greenhouse gas emissions from each country have global impacts. Hence, international efforts to address it tend to be framed as ways to overcome a collective action problem. The central goal has been to prevent states from freeriding on other states’ emissions-cutting efforts, on the assumption these efforts would involve significant economic and social costs. This understanding mandated a multilateral response to climate change organised on a collective scale. And, from an institutional perspective, climate cooperation can be seen as a something of a multilateral success story.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established at the end of the cold war, with both the United States and Soviet Union as participants. The UNFCCC, agreed in Rio in 1992, provided a global framework. Discussions at the COPs have often been difficult – but have still achieved important results.

Nonetheless, climate change is accelerating. The global multilateral system has so far been unable to impede catastrophic effects that will become far more serious over the next decades. Already, extreme weather is causing enormous harm in many parts of the world.

Crucial questions for the current moment are how to promote progress in climate talks, given that Russia’s war on Ukraine is one of the factors causing tension, and how climate ‘coalitions of the willing’ might work best alongside the UN processes, and help strengthen them.

Today’s climate governance can be seen as a ‘regime complex’: an overlapping collection of different regimes of varying kinds rather than a single, comprehensive, and integrated system. The UNFCCC sits at the centre, but other elements include multiple UN institutions, cooperation between like-minded countries, sectorial cooperation, and public-private partnerships.

COP26 produced important results. The Glasgow meeting largely accomplished its formal agenda: the completion of a ‘rulebook’ with guidelines on how to implement the 2015 Paris agreement. The conclusions, basically in the form of a decision on the 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact, included promises on climate finance and commitments to “phase down unabated coal power and inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels”.

The UK also succeeded (with co-chair Italy) in paving the way for the ‘Glasgow Breakthroughs’, important voluntary commitments on, inter alia, phasing out coal, electrifying transport, and decarbonising industry.

However, progress on delivery has proved difficult. In Glasgow last year, the idea was to transform the pledges that had been made into a ‘mitigation work programme’ within the UNFCCC process. Since then, negotiators have faced resistance to what some countries – including China – see as too much interference in domestic policymaking. The Bonn conference in June saw acrimonious disputes between the global south and high-income countries over funding to mitigate the harm caused by climate change. Not many new, more ambitious NDCs have been forthcoming.

At COP27, adaptation to climate change will be in focus, and lack of trust between the global north and south is a major obstacle to progress. Adaptation covers such topics as stronger flood defences: a need starkly demonstrated in Pakistan – where monsoon rains up to five times heavier than average have submerged vast areas, leaving 33 million people requiring emergency aid. It is hardly surprising that the global south is demanding wealthy nations fulfil their promises of more finance for climate adaptation.

Among the commitments at COP26 was a pledge from richer nations to provide $40 billion a year for low- and middle-income countries to finance climate adaptation. However, only half this amount has actually been allocated. At a high-level meeting on adaptation in Rotterdam in early September, there was widespread disappointment over the lack of serious engagement from the governments of developed countries.

Controversy also surrounds compensation for ‘loss and damage’ (harms that have already occurred because of climate change). Developing countries are demanding a specific fund for this purpose. Germany has launched the ‘global shield’ as an alternative solution. The G7 and the most vulnerable countries have endorsed the proposal, which aims to make money rapidly available in a crisis – including by creating a pool of insurance funds against damage. Critics of the initiative argue that insurance is rarely available to the poorest, and that the proposal does not include funding for adaptation.

Meanwhile, the EU and others are trying to move the mitigation agenda forward and find a path towards new, more ambitious climate action, a ‘global stocktake’ within the climate convention of NDC pledges, and a fresh round of commitments for 2025.

Geopolitical tensions are also complicating the preparations for COP27. Russia’s war on Ukraine has amplified divisions between Russia and the West, and given rise to food and fuel inflation that is having a devastating impact on low- and middle-income countries. At the same time, the competition for influence between the West China and is becoming sharper, limiting both sides’ willingness and capacity to work together.

There is, therefore, a stark contrast between the geopolitical backdrop to COP27 and the run-up to Paris 2015. The landmark 2015 agreement owed much to strong cooperation between the EU and groups of developing countries, such as the most vulnerable countries and the small island states, under the name of the High Ambition Coalition. Such cooperation remains essential for further progress in multilateral forums, but it will be harder to carry out in the current global context.

While progress in implementing the Paris agreement has not been quick enough, the 2015 Paris commitments set the ‘gold standard’ for what governments and others should do. As Charles Sabel and David bodog online casino Victor argue in “Fixing the Climate”, holding global warming “well below 2 degrees C” and achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century is now axiomatic for many companies and sectors, and sustainable finance and corporate governance. Pledges from governments also create opportunities for public scrutiny. Annual COPs focus global attention and serve as forums for a broad range of initiatives from states and non-state groups. In all these ways, the UNFCCC process necessarily remains at the core of global efforts on climate change, but developments in international politics and the need for more urgent action make it desirable to look for a wider range of approaches.

Drivers of national action on climate have changed
The Paris agreement model assumed that peer pressure would incentivise states to set increasingly ambitious targets for emissions reductions, and national policy would then strive to meet those targets. To some extent this has happened. For example, President Joe Biden announced new national targets in April 2021 as a way of re-establishing US leadership on climate policy. Biden’s targets set an ambitious goal that his administration has since taken steps to achieve through recent climate legislation. Strikingly, however, China and India, two of the three largest greenhouse gas emitters, are projected to exceed the modest emissions targets they announced under the Paris agreement process. In their cases, NDC pledges have not served to raise ambition, but instead to reflect climate policies that are driven at least partly by other factors.

To develop an effective global policy on climate change, Europe needs to understand the full range of factors spurring national decision-making. In a recent academic paper, the political scientists Michaël Aklin and Matto Mildenberger argued that government climate policies are determined more by domestic politics than by concerns about global freeriding, and especially by distributive conflicts between pro- and anti-climate reform interest groups.

Commercial advantage has moved centre-stage since dramatic falls in the costs of renewable energy components transformed the economics of carbon-neutral power generation. Switching to renewable energy now looks like a self-interested decision. In the words of a leading Indian parliamentarian, “net-zero is net positive”. The emergence of green energy as the basis of the economy of the future means that states such as China and the US are competing to capture and control the critical supply chains on which clean energy sources rely and set the standards underpinning the technologies.

Beyond economic advantage, the ever-harsher impact of climate change on daily life around the world is also a spur to action. Finally, renewables offer the prospect of greater energy security at a time when countries are more aware than ever of the dangers of energy dependency. But despite these advantages, the initial costs of green transitions and the difficulty of raising capital stand in many countries’ way. The availability of finance to power green transitions is a vital enabler in national calculations, a point actively pushed in the global south’s efforts to redefine equity and responsibility in the global order.

The major players
As the landscape for global climate policy is determined by the range of national calculations, it is important to identify the main considerations of the major players: the US, China, the EU, Russia, emerging markets, and low-income countries.

The US: The Biden administration’s policies are shaped by the need to manoeuvre in the polarised environment of US politics. A significant part of the US public supports the policies of former president Donald Trump, marked by hostility to the green agenda and to international cooperation. Biden has sought to reposition the US as a global climate leader. Yet, political constraints are evident in his determination to avoid penalising the use of fossil fuels and his emphasis on the domestic economic advantages of the green transition (for example, by limiting tax credits to electric vehicles assembled in North America).

Biden’s signature climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, only won Senate approval because it took an industrial strategy approach to fighting climate change. The scale of the act ($374 billion in tax credits) means it will likely transform the US economy and make American solar and wind power the cheapest in the world. However, Biden’s climate policy has a national focus that raises big questions about the extent to which the US will be supportive towards energy transitions in other countries. Notably, his administration has not yet won congressional support for a major increase in international climate financing.

China is now the world’s largest emitter, accounting for 27 per cent of global greenhouse emissions in 2019. But China has embraced climate action as a core part of its domestic and foreign policy. It spent no less than $381 billion on clean energy in 2021, and President Xi Jinping pledged the country would stop building coal-fired power plants overseas in his 2021 video address to the UN General Assembly. China’s climate policy reflects a desire to appear a credible participant in the UNFCCC process. However, China is also powerfully invested in leveraging its position as a leading player in green technology industries, a sector in which its industrial strategy has already yielded strong results (for instance, China controls more than 80 per cent of the global supply chain for solar panels). Moreover, China is highly vulnerable to climate change, with 900 million people suffering under record-breaking heat waves last summer.

China has cooperated with both the US and EU on climate in recent years – its involvement was central to the conclusion of the Paris agreement, and it agreed a joint declaration with the US at COP26 in 2021 that promised to accelerate efforts to reach a global net zero economy. However, China has pulled back from climate cooperation with the West recently, suspending its climate dialogue with the US after house speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in early August. China then reportedly refused to recommit to pledges already made in Glasgow at the August meeting of G20 environment and energy ministers. With China apparently reluctant to appear to make concessions to the West on climate, competition over green technology is emerging as the primary driver of climate policy in both China and the US.

Europe stands out for its strong domestic political commitment to climate action. European countries have gone further than those in any other region to contain carbon emissions through market mechanisms such as carbon pricing and an emissions trading system. In this way, the EU has sought to become a global leader through the power of example, but its commitment to carbon pricing sets it apart from the US and other global powers. More significantly, the EU’s initiative to set up a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) has provoked global concern.

The logic behind the CBAM is to allow European industry to invest in low-carbon technologies at higher costs without being undercut by cheaper, higher-carbon imports. However, the proposal to levy a tariff on imported goods with a high carbon content has provoked charges of protectionism amid fears that poorer countries less able to undertake a quick green transition will be penalised. Carbon border adjustment mechanism reporting on imports of iron and steel, fertilisers, aluminium, cement, and electricity is due to start in 2023 to lay the groundwork for payments from 2026. The CBAM’s unpopularity may therefore hinder the EU’s climate diplomacy.

Equally uncertain is how economic warfare over Russian gas will test European consistency on climate policy, given the urgent need to secure additional energy supplies. Last year, several European countries and the European Investment Bank signed a pledge to halt funding for overseas fossil fuel projects. European countries have since sought additional gas imports from the developing world, provoking charges of hypocrisy.

Russia, the fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has historically disdained international climate talks but switched course ahead of COP26 in 2021.[2] Russian president Vladimir Putin announced the goal of carbon neutrality by 2060. Analysts suggest Putin’s shift was prompted by a mix of concern about the EU’s looming CBAM strategy and visible climate damage such as melting permafrost. However, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, climate policy has disappeared from its political discourse. Russia is unlikely to act as an outright spoiler at COP27, but it cannot be expected to take any further steps to cooperate on climate policy or scale back its emissions.

Emerging markets are among the major challenges for international climate policy. Excluding China, these countries are responsible for a rising share of global emissions – estimated at 34 per cent in 2021. The proportion will increase as their economies continue to grow and developed countries scale back on fossil fuels. Emerging markets such as India, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey, and Vietnam are falling well short of the share of reductions necessary to meet the Paris agreement goals, according to the Climate Action Tracker monitoring organisation. Focused on completing their industrial development, they lack resources to undertake green transitions and currently struggle to attract investment due to poor credit ratings or perceived instability. The availability of climate finance is a key factor in emerging markets’ ability to set more ambitious targets.

Finally, lower-income countries are increasingly feeling the effects of heatwaves, floods, and droughts that are killing people and destroying their livelihoods. Loss of faith in multilateral institutions is widespread, alongside growing resentment over global inequality (not helped by being last in the queue for covid-19 vaccines). For them, the need for climate funding to deal with adaptation and mitigation is now at least as high a priority as limiting future emissions.

Green coalitions of the willing
In this variegated and competitive landscape, there is a strong case for supplementing collective processes with more flexible initiatives by ambitious countries. It is a strategy with honourable antecedents: for example, the ‘Toronto Club’, whose early measures to protect the ozone layer led to the Montreal Protocol; and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition – which arose out of cooperation between developed countries and the global south to tackle short-lived air pollutants, such as soot, that harm air quality and climate.

Like-minded initiatives permit countries to move ahead at a faster pace than in the UNFCCC – which operates by consensus – and strike partnerships based on shared interests or concerns. There are three areas in particular in which such coalitions of the willing are taking shape in climate policy: the implementation of commitments made in connection with the COP26 in Glasgow (including the Breakthrough Agenda), the G7’s proposal for a climate club, and just energy transition partnerships (JETPs) between developed and developing countries.

The Breakthrough Agenda
The Breakthrough Agenda – a series of initiatives taken at COP26 to accelerate a shift to green technology in five sectors (power, hydrogen, road transport, steel, and agriculture sectors) – has acquired significant momentum. More than 40 governments are now working together with the private sector to achieve goals such as making affordable, renewable, and low-carbon hydrogen globally available by 2030. The initiatives include measures on standards, research and development, public procurement, and support for developing countries. Most major economies have signed up to the Breakthrough Agenda, including the US, China, India, the EU, and the UK.

After the first annual report was discussed in Pittsburgh in September 2022, it was decided to take the agenda forward together with the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) and Mission Innovation (MI), two initiatives that include International Energy Agency (IEA) members, but also other countries such as India and Brazil. It is likely that the IEA Secretariat will play a central role in coordinating efforts to decarbonise the agenda’s five sectors of focus.

However, although many governments have signed the Breakthrough Agenda and participate in CEM/MI, these initiatives still do not include most countries in the global south. It is not clear if an ‘institutional home’ at the IEA will be enough to bring the agenda global credibility. Linking the current processes better to include organisations such as the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) would give them greater legitimacy in all parts of the world.

The climate club
Low-carbon transitions are also supported by cooperation in the G7 and G20. The G7 climate, energy, and environment ministers agreed on an industrial decarbonisation agenda in May 2022, including public procurement of low-carbon products and joint standards for development. However, the most ambitious G7 climate initiative is the climate club – which was launched in June 2022 at the G7 leaders’ summit at Schloss Elmau in Bavaria, Germany. According to the G7 communique, the club aims to address the world’s shortfall on ambition and implementation towards meeting the Paris agreement targets. Hence, the club aims to “support the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement by accelerating climate action and increasing ambition, with a particular focus on industry, thereby addressing risks of carbon leakage for emission intensive goods, while complying with international rules”.

A potential benefit of the climate club is that – to the extent that all partners are on board – it prevents the EU unilaterally imposing its carbon pricing mechanism, which could spark negative reactions around the world. Ideally, key trade partners such as the US, the UK, Japan, and Canada would agree similar measures, easing the way towards lower emissions from, for example, steel and cement plants. Cooperation among major economies could also facilitate the creation of markets for low-carbon products such as ‘green steel’, which Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz has stressed must be WTO-compliant.

However, there are risks to this approach as emerging markets and less developed countries may fear it is the start of a ‘rich countries club’. Given existing criticism of the EU proposal for the CBAM, the impression that rich countries are ‘ganging up’ could play into the hands of China and Russia, whose leaders may try to drive a wedge between the EU and developing countries in climate negotiations and elsewhere. Unless significant steps are taken to help green transitions in other countries, a club that incorporated any form of carbon border tax could replicate the backlash against the CBAM on a larger scale.

Germany, which holds the current G7 presidency, invited Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal, and South Africa to the Schloss Elmau summit to counter such opposition. Success was partial. Brazil and China – as well as summit participants South Africa, India, and Senegal – have expressed grave concern at unilateral carbon border adjustments, calling them “discriminatory” and arguing that the CBAM is against the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities. Senegal’s president has urged the EU not to target Africa with the new instrument.

The EU has also had limited success in convincing the US and other G7 states to introduce national carbon pricing similar to that in the union. As a consequence, the follow-up to the G7 summit is now focusing on cooperation in other fields such as joint standards for development and criteria for public procurement. So, the agenda is partly converging with what is already being done within the Breakthrough Agenda, and CEM/MI initiatives.

Just energy transition partnerships
With slow progress in the formal UNFCCC negotiations, many pin their hopes on Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs). The first such cooperation with South Africa received much attention in Glasgow, and was seen as a way of building alliances between the global north and south. Recently, South Africa decided on an investment plan for how the $8.5 billion of promised financing can best be used. Talks on similar arrangements are ongoing with India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Senegal.

However, the JETP agreement with South Africa will not be easy to implement, and other prospective JETPs are at an early stage. To succeed, JETPs should start from the needs of the country concerned, and the EU and other actors need to have enough to offer. South Africa, Indonesia, and Senegal are all stressing domestic industrial development and added value, rather than new extractive agreements on materials like critical minerals and green hydrogen. EU actors need to show they understand these countries’ development needs – for example, to rapidly shift car production to electric vehicles. Recipient countries need to be willing to reform institutions with vested interests in resisting low-carbon transitions. Negotiations may take two or three years, followed by a two-way long-term commitment to implementation.

In JETPs and other bilateral deals, the EU and G7 could include more cooperation on green innovation (including on intellectual property) and joint demonstration projects, as outlined in earlier ECFR publications. The EU could, for example, set up a ‘co-innovation and green-tech diffusion fund’, partly financed from the CBAM and the existing emissions trading system. It could also better mainstream industrial transformation in action plans under the NDICI/Global Europe cooperation strategy. Enhanced possibilities for researchers and institutes in the global south to participate in EU-funded research and development programmes would also be a positive step.

Linking like-minded initiatives to broader multilateral processes
These initiatives offer the chance to create a new momentum among states willing to take ambitious steps to embrace a green transition. But they will only be seen as legitimate and contribute to addressing the global dimension of climate change if they sit within a broader collective framework. To bridge the current trust gaps, especially between the global south and north, it is vital that countries are not left behind. It will therefore be necessary to address the following three areas in particular: finance, sectorial transformations, and institutional structures.

Delivering on climate finance
Climate finance forms a scattered landscape that is not easy for recipient countries to navigate. Coordination is badly needed, and is to some extent taking place through joint platforms such as JETPs. Multilateral banks also play a key role as major actors in this field.

Redeeming trust will cost rich countries money – and a precondition for better cooperation is rapid delivery of financial support, including the promise of $100 billion annually which was meant to be achieved by 2020.

Finding substantial funds will not be easy in an economic downturn with public finances strained by Russia’s war on Ukraine and its consequences. Leaders of OECD countries need to recognise the linkages between geopolitics and climate promises: climate funding is an important way to secure a global public good, but it is also a vital step towards maintaining strong and supple alliances in the global south, when Russia and China are stepping up their quest for influence.

Developed countries need to commit to new financing as well as meet existing obligations, specifically to support the ‘new collective quantified goal’ from 2025 – funds COP21 had agreed to find after the annual $100 billion target. But quality is as important as quantity. More funding is needed for adaptation, and this should involve more grants. (Loans made up 71 per cent of public climate finance in 2020.)

Beyond climate finance as defined in the UNFCCC decisions, there should be a clear link to greening all financial flows, as foreseen in the Paris agreement. Global coordination is needed on standards for sustainable finance (such as the EU taxonomy), green bonds, mandatory disclosure of climate risks in the financial sector, active use of instruments for de-risking green investments, and more. Countries such as Indonesia should be assisted so they can break long-term contracts on building new coal plants. And developing countries need support to be able to make better use of the income from their natural resources.

Within the IMF, rich countries need to make more effort to redistribute special drawing rights to the global south. Debt relief through multilateral financial institutions is essential to ease the pressure on many vulnerable countries. Renewed impetus for the ‘Debt Service Suspension Initiative’, and well-designed ‘debt-for-climate swaps’ can be part of the solution. European governments and institutions should give effective support to the ‘Bridgetown Agenda’, an initiative unveiled in September by Barbados’s prime minister Mia Mottley. This advocates a programme of debt relief and World Bank reforms to enhance climate resilience in poor countries that was devised jointly with the UN and civil society groups.

Calls for the reform of World Bank structures and programmes have grown stronger, as has criticism of the present leadership. The bank has a central role and should increase funding for climate mitigation and adaptation measures, adopt stricter ‘do no harm’ principles for all its actions, and become more transparent on how money is used.

At multilateral development banks, lending that de-risks bodog online casino climate investments should be significantly increased, as described in a G20-commissioned independent expert report. US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, recently said she could see a case for multilateral development bank funds “to help middle-income countries transition away from coal in the context of accelerating the clean energy transition”.

Better horizontal mechanisms for cooperation on low-carbon transitions are needed to avoid complicated country-by-country agreements. Smaller and ‘weaker’ countries in the global south fear they will not get the same support for low-carbon transitions as JETP countries. A twin-track approach could include stronger action by the World Bank and the multilateral development banks, including the European Investment Bank.

Scaling up carbon pricing cooperation could also feature in a twin-track approach. Current cooperation between like-minded countries, such as the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action and the International Carbon Action Partnership, could benefit from strengthening multilateral institutions such as the current small group in the World Bank that supports governments in this area.

Pushing sectorial transformations forward
While sectorial transformation is a major focus of the flexible initiatives discussed above, it also needs to be taken forward at a global level.

The energy crisis poses a challenge for the climate agenda as, unlike climate and food, there is no global institution for energy governance. The IEA’s membership is limited in principle to OECD countries. Many facets of energy cooperation are dispersed within the UN system, but no single agency pulls them together. The UNFCCC process on its own is ill-equipped to address the complex linkages between climate and energy policies.

In many countries without domestic oil and gas reserves the economic situation is deteriorating and energy poverty is increasing. This puts increased pressure on large parts of the global south, already facing rising debt.

Although there are already important programmes to support energy transitions in the global south, such efforts need to be reinforced. Multilateral banks in particular have a responsibility to increase their efforts to de-risk investments, as discussed in the previous section. The EU and other parts of the global north also need to step up short-term support to countries that are especially vulnerable to the present energy crisis. This could include far bigger efforts to jointly promote energy efficiency.

But the salience of high energy prices and energy scarcity also presents opportunities for progress on climate change.

Already, coordination of international assistance for low-carbon transitions in the power sector has improved through initiatives such as the Climate Investment Platform. The World Bank has taken on other projects such as the Accelerating Coal Transition Investment Program and many shareholders are demanding more action. Philanthropic investors and development banks have together launched the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, with significant resources.

In addition to accelerating renewable energy investments, now is also the time to do more for energy efficiency at the global level. IEA and Clean Energy Ministerial programmes for efficient appliances can, for example, be developed into international agreements on ambitious minimum standards. Increased development finance in this area would facilitate consensus. In the long run, global energy governance needs to become more inclusive, which will require reforms to the IEA.

In addition to getting rid of fossil fuels, many countries in the global south aspire to achieve their own green industrial development. Alongside like-minded initiatives in this area, Europe should promote the strengthening of UN bodies (such as UNIDO) in this field, including the Industrial Deep Decarbonisation Secretariat and the Climate Technology Centre and Network. EU and G7 members should also increase their contributions to the industrial decarbonisation fund within the World Bank’s Climate Investment Fund.

Standardisation is another crucial area. Global agreements are needed on such things as measuring the carbon content of products and on hydrogen safety. This is a potential task for an international hydrogen alliance. Current public-private projects are important, but stronger government-to-government cooperation is also necessary. Developing countries need economic support to participate actively.

There could also be further international steps on the transport sector. Near-zero-emission vehicles are a growing part of the global market. Coalitions of the willing aim to accelerate the deployment. One of the goals for the Breakthrough Agenda is to ensure that “zero-emission vehicles are the new normal and are accessible, affordable, and sustainable in all regions by 2030”.

However, global governance on the decarbonisation of transport is less developed than in the power sector. Scope exists to scale up cooperation on developing countries’ low-carbon transitions: for example, by investing in charging infrastructure, financial and technical support for local industrial development (such as electric vehicles in South Africa), and coordinated actions on sustainable supply chains (such as batteries). Most major car producing countries (though not China) are members of the Zero Emission Vehicles Transition Council. Its ambitions to work closely with developing countries are encouraging.

In parallel, established international organisations need to do more: the World Bank’s Global Facility for Decarbonizing Transport needs replenishment. The World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulation is another important arena. More can be done on standardisation of charging.

Outside the road transport sector, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) have been slow to respond to climate change. It is laudable that they have now made some progress, but fundamental issues such as the strong influence of vested commercial interests urgently need to be addressed.

Conditions for agriculture and forestry are changing because of climate change, while the sectors themselves are significant sources of emissions. More is required at the global level to promote climate-resilient agriculture with lower environmental impacts. This puts new demands on the Food and Agriculture Organisation and other international organisations such as the UN development programme (UNDP). Efforts to combat deforestation need to be intensified. Multilateral banks and other donors should prioritise these areas and international cooperation on research and development should be intensified.

Institutional reforms
There is also scope to strengthen international institutions active on climate change. It is necessary to provide the UNEP, the UNDP, the UNFCCC Secretariat, and other UN institutions with better possibilities to act. Multilateral organisations in the climate and development fields are often understaffed and in need of stronger leadership at various levels. The EU can strengthen trust in multilateral systems’ ability to deliver by contributing to institutional capacity-building.

Work should continue on an UNFCCC work programme on mitigation, based on the Glasgow Climate Pact. If the formal COP27 decision in Egypt on this topic turns out to be mostly procedural, the ministerial roundtable and other activities around COP27 could be used to give some momentum to further action in 2023. It would also be helpful to support developing countries in the measurement and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions. Without good systems, companies in the global south might be disadvantaged, for instance, under the CBAM. While the EU’s NDICI/Global Europe programme can support this bilaterally, member states can contribute more to existing multilateral initiatives within the WTO.

The ‘coalitions of the willing’ commitments in Glasgow on low-carbon steel, zero-emission vehicles, and green hydrogen will be taken forward through Mission Innovation, in which many – but not all – governments participate. As discussed above, it would be useful to strengthen UNIDO to facilitate green industrial development in developing countries.

As the UNFCCC secretariat has only a limited mandate to review and draw conclusions from countries’ NDCs, it is useful for other actors to do so (non-state actors like OECD/IEA/UNEP) and help to ensure the ‘global stocktake’ yields more ambitious NDCs in the next round. Better use could be made of the IPCC in this regard.

The OECD has already contributed to enhanced climate action ambitions in Latin American countries through its accession process and cooperation with emerging markets. The OECD’s analytical capabilities could be of considerable use to advance mutual learning on mitigation action plans, if coupled with cooperation with UN institutions.

Aligning trade and climate action and defusing tensions
Tensions over the CBAM proposal show that trade is an increasingly pressing question in climate multilateralism. This is true both globally and in bilateral or plurilateral relations.

The US-EU steel agreement of October 2021 envisages cooperation on promoting low-carbon steelmaking and tariffs towards other countries with higher emissions. However, as one senior EU official expresses it,[3] there is no established “landing zone” on trade in steel if the US does not introduce federal carbon pricing or equivalent measures.

There are also other hazards for the EU-US relationship. The US relies largely on subsidies to promote low-carbon technologies: the new Inflation Reduction Act includes financial support for green products such as US-made cars. Carbon pricing at the federal level seems a long way off. However, the EU has questioned whether some of the new US green subsidies are compatible with WTO rules.

Templates for the discussion of green subsidies exist in many bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements, such as the EU-Japan and EU-UK agreements. The EU and the US need to prevent trade conflicts over the CBAM and the Inflation Reduction Act by agreeing on a common approach to subsidies in sectors such as steel and autos.

China, Japan, South Korea, and some other countries with financial heft are also using subsidies to promote low-carbon production, while many developing countries lack such financial muscle. To ease tensions, richer countries need to step up support for green economic development in the global south, for instance by increasing Aid for Trade.

It may be helpful to consider reforms to the WTO agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures to state more clearly that environmental protection is a viable reason for subsidies and agree under which conditions this should apply. Reducing trade barriers for environmental goods and services is another important area.

A crucial role for the European Union
The EU should take a leading role in all of this. As argued in an earlier ECFR publication, the union is uniquely positioned to act as a ‘midwife’ for stronger global climate action.

To do so, the EU needs to repeat the success story of the Paris agreement negotiations and forge alliances with the global south. The EU should renew its relations with the group of least developed countries and small island developing states, amid growing criticism of insufficient European action.

In addition to the measures discussed above, to bridge the current trust gap, the EU needs to deliver on its own commitments, including Ursula von der Leyen’s promise that the EU’s Global Gateway infrastructure programme will lead to massive (€150 billion) investments in Africa. Making this a reality will require better ‘Team Europe’ thinking between member states and with the European Commission.

It is not always easy to show immediate benefits from emissions cuts in poor countries with many investment needs – including more transportation and power generation. The EU should transpose its (domestic and international) leadership on air and water pollution to demonstrate co-benefits such as how curbing coal-fired power or diesel fuels produces swift reductions in both respiratory problems and carbon emissions.

Cooperation within the UNEP and UN Conventions in areas other than climate shows how ‘coalitions of the willing’ can work well alongside multilateral processes. The goodwill the EU has in such contexts could be better deployed for international climate action.

Effective policies depend greatly on action in sectors that fall outside the remit of ministries for climate and environment. When it comes to energy, the EU already has a strategy for its relations with other parts of the world. In a similar way, external relations strategies for industry, transport, and financial services need to be developed, both to facilitate climate cooperation and build the necessary trust to secure critical supply chains.

Finally, the EU needs to deliver at home to be convincing in international forums. Rapid agreement between the European Parliament and Council on the Fit for 55 package to facilitate 55 per cent emissions cuts by 2030 would enhance the EU’s legitimacy and show its partners that low-carbon transitions offer answers to the energy crises in many parts of the world.

Conclusions and recommendations
The global context for climate policy is changing amid growing geopolitical tensions. To adapt, the EU should do more to understand and engage with the domestic political concerns surrounding climate politics elsewhere in the world. It needs to take a more varied approach to promote international action against global warming. Indeed, it has already started doing so. This paper has assessed efforts by the EU and its member states to put in place a twin-track strategy on climate multilateralism and identified how it might best be developed and implemented. Here, we identify a few priorities for future action.

Despite public finances being under strain everywhere, it is crucial to deliver on climate financing and the broader issue of financial flows. This spending cannot be delayed, as the next few years represent a critical moment in the effort to limit climate change. Moreover, the EU needs to see climate finance in a geopolitical perspective, as one of the necessary steps to counter Chinese and Russian influence in the global south. Specific measures should include further efforts to redistribute the special drawing rights within the IMF.

In particular, there need to be concrete steps towards increased finance for adaptation, which has become a political flashpoint – encapsulating perceptions of wealthy nations’ indifference and unfairness. Specifically, the German and G7 climate ‘loss-and-damage’ proposals and plans for a climate insurance and resilience ‘umbrella’ (‘global shield’) will lack sufficient appeal without more grants for investments in resilience.

To gain trust and forge true north-south alliances, the EU and member states should support low-carbon industrial transitions, not just the deployment of renewable energy. JETPs should proceed from the industrial development ambitions of countries in the global south. More steps should be taken on co-innovation and technology diffusion promotion: the EU should set up a specific fund for this purpose.

The same applies to the G7’s climate club, if implemented: efforts to accelerate decarbonisation need to be truly inclusive of other parts of the world. Voluntary commitments to climate action by governments in ‘coalitions of the willing’ need to be more clearly linked to the UNFCCC, including through a substantial work programme for mitigation up to 2030. It will not be easy to agree on such a programme, even if it does not entail additional commitments, but the EU should make it a requirement for compromise in other areas.

The EU and member states should be prepared to manage the fallout from a potentially conflict-ridden COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, and find pathways in 2023 towards progress at COP28 in Qatar and COP29 in Europe or Australia. This should include the ‘global stocktake’, and support for the UN secretary general’s preparations for the Summit of the Future in September 2024. Progress on JETPs and on climate finance will also be vital.

To strengthen the institutional capacity of the multilateral climate regimes, UN bodies such as UNEP, UNIDO and the UNFCCC need appropriate resources. Sectorial bodies such as ICAO for aviation and IMO for shipping need to make climate action a real priority. Reform of the World Bank is urgently needed. Existing financial instruments such as the Climate Investment Funds need replenishment and access to the Green Climate Fund should be facilitated.

The risk of ‘trade wars’ over carbon border measures and national subsidies should be taken seriously. It is important to hold the G7 together by finding common guidelines on subsidies to ‘green industry’ – preferably within the WTO, but between the OECD countries as a first step.

The current energy crisis threatens global climate cooperation. The EU needs to increase short-term support to developing countries that are vulnerable to high global energy prices. In the longer run a more inclusive global governance on energy needs to be developed, in part by giving the global south greater influence in the IEA.

The EU should find a more constructive strategy for WTO negotiations on all topics related to climate, including intellectual property rights. To facilitate agreements, green ‘Aid-for-Trade’ programmes should be expanded.

The EU should also strengthen its climate diplomacy in the widest sense, improving coherence between policy areas and developing external sectorial strategies for climate-related topics in areas such as industrial policy, the financial sector, and food.

This paper was made possible by a grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and the authors would like to thank the foundation for its generous support. A draft version of the paper was discussed at an online workshop in September 2022, the participants’ comments were extremely helpful. The authors are also grateful for the help of their ECFR colleagues Susi Dennison, Kadri Liik, and Janka Oertel. Thanks also to Mary Hennock for editing the paper.

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These questions took center stage during a session titled, ‘The Trade System is Changing: Can It Deliver for the Future?’ held at this year’s World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Public Forum. The event, which took place on 27 September, both in person and online, was co-organized by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), and CUTS International, Geneva.

Moderator Alice Tipping, Lead for Sustainable Trade, IISD, set the stage for the conversation, outlining how the past several years have already seen a sea change in both the substance and practice of trade policy. Two examples of how the substance is changing are the discussions underway among over 80 WTO members on potential rules for digital trade, along with efforts among other WTO member groups to look at where the trading system can contribute to tackling environmental challenges such as climate change or plastic pollution.

Currently, the WTO’s rules on digital economy issues are limited. There has long been in place a moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, which normally must be renewed every two years at the Organization’s ministerial conferences, and there is a work programme on e-commerce that dates back to 1998. However, the moratorium has been dogged with repeated questions over whether it should be scrapped, made permanent, or continue to be renewed on a roughly biennial basis. Discussions under the work programme have also been limited and, in some WTO bodies, infrequent. In 2017, however, a large group of WTO members launched a “joint initiative” towards negotiating binding rules on digital trade, which has advanced significantly in the years since.

While the WTO’s Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) is an important forum for environmental issues, and multilateral negotiations on select environmental agenda items have taken place in parallel since 2001, there is a growing appetite among WTO members to have a space for more targeted work on select issues. To complement the conversations underway in the CTE, following extensive preparatory work, different WTO member groups launched ministerial statements for three “joint initiatives” – on trade and environmental sustainability, plastic pollution and environmentally sustainable plastics trade, and fossil fuel subsidy reform.

However, the practice of launching joint initiatives is controversial in Geneva circles, given that some WTO members worry that such processes could detract attention from the existing issues on the multilateral agenda that already have agreed mandates. While some of these joint initiatives envision the negotiation of new rules, others have involved sharing experiences, best practices, and ideas for cooperation. These joint initiatives involve a subset of the WTO membership.

“This is not an easy discussion,” said Tipping, noting the tension around the emergence of joint initiatives. This is why, however, “it’s important to think and to talk about what these changes might mean for international cooperation on trade policy in the coming years – both the opportunities that they present, but also the challenges that might be there that we need to acknowledge and address.”

The digital economy: eyes on process, emphasis on capacity building

The Public Forum session Bodog Poker began with a deep dive into the digital economy and the role of the trading system, especially in light of the rapid changes seen in the digital landscape over the past few years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With 87 WTO members now looking to clinch a binding deal on e-commerce rules next year, speakers weighed what the substance and the process of these negotiations should entail, and what implications this would have for developing country members and smaller businesses located in those economies.

Digital trade has great potential in helping address societal and environmental goals “when treated well,” said Kumar Iyer, Director General, Economics, Science, and Technology, Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), UK, but it can also hamper achieving those objectives when handled poorly. The question is “how to maximize the advantages and minimize the risks,” especially in such a vital area.

“These are not challenges that can wait. They will overtake us,” he said, explaining that existing rules could risk becoming obsolete, along with putting the WTO’s relevance into question. Bad practices in the digital sphere could also become increasingly commonplace unless WTO members find paths forward to answer the challenges and opportunities being posed by an increasingly digital economy.

Similarly, Ute John, Chair of Trade and Investment Commission, ICC, and who also works at the Mercedes Benz Group, noted that new barriers in digital trade could pose risks to companies and sectors, urging WTO members to make the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions permanent. A car, for example, is now “a computer on wheels,” John noted, meaning that the scope of what an electronic transmission covers is becoming “increasingly intensive,” and introducing such customs duties could have far-reaching ramifications.

“The pandemic has accelerated the digital transition, and this affects all companies, irrespective of size, sector, or region,” John told the audience. The e-commerce negotiations currently underway among a group of WTO members should involve an “ambitious agreement” that includes data governance, such as data flows and cyber privacy. With momentum in the talks picking up, a deal at the WTO’s next ministerial conference (MC13) could be in sight, John said.

Negotiating new rules in this area, however, will be challenging for governments, especially given that this is a negotiation that is not a traditional exercise on market access, noted Ambassador Pimchanok Pitfield of Thailand, who represents the Southeast Asian nation at the WTO. This is a negotiation that involves regulatory issues and regulatory convergence, but “at the same time, compliance costs are high, especially for developing countries, so we need to take that into account.”

John also argued for the value of capacity building, noting it would benefit many companies that are part of the ICC and that are based in developing countries. This support would be important for these companies to take part in the conversation and benefit from the changes underway in the digital economy.

Capacity building would also be key for governments, the audience heard. “These are new issues” and therefore not all delegations will have the technical expertise they need, said Pitfield. “Because these are different rules, they require different skills to negotiate,” Tipping concurred, noting a new report from the TradeExperettes network that named capacity building one of the recommended “quick wins” that WTO members should consider on digital trade.

Ambassador George Mina of Australia reminded participants that the digital economy, while long a part of our daily lives, is still a comparatively nascent area in international rule making. “We have a long way to go on digital trade,” said Mina, noting that the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions remains the only specific rule at the WTO on e-commerce, though some existing rules in areas such as services trade may intersect with the digital economy. The joint initiative on electronic commerce provides a platform that WTO members can build from, he said.

Trade and environment: tackling existential threats

The other major substantive theme of the session was the role of trade cooperation in tackling pressing environmental challenges, especially the climate crisis.

“Climate change is the single biggest threat facing all of our nations. It is existential in nature,” said Iyer, pointing to recent examples of flooding in Pakistan, droughts in Europe, and hurricanes in the Caribbean as cases where communities are feeling the impacts of the climate crisis in their daily lives. These extreme weather events also affect the poorest the hardest. “It is imperative for us to find solutions here. Trade is not the only lever, but it is absolutely a part of the solution set,” he said.

Examples of where the trading system could help, Iyer noted, would be a “coordinated approach to carbon leakage” and liberalizing trade in environmental goods and services, noting that the trading system will not always be “the answer to all of our targets” and should not be treated as such.

While the trading system can help in tackling threats such as climate change, it can also be a hindrance to those same objectives if not handled carefully. “We can’t let the trading system be the way that you can evade” commitments made in the UN climate talks or other international forums, said Iyer. Initiatives such as the trade and environmental sustainability structured discussions (TESSD) underway among a large group of WTO members can be a source of excellent work in this vein, he urged.

John concurred, referring also to the informal dialogue on plastic pollution and environmentally sustainable trade (IDP) underway by another group of WTO members, which has some overlapping membership with the TESSD initiative. These informal initiatives, Tipping indicated, are a space where governments are “sharing best practices on how trade can contribute,” and while some may lead to negotiations, that is not their sole purpose and may not be the ultimate outcome.

One of the big challenges, however, is the current narrative around environmental protection. Pitfield, recounting the evolution of trade and environment issues since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, indicated that one of the big problems has been in making the benefits of these policymaking efforts evident. “It is easier if you can demonstrate the benefits of why you have to negotiate on the digital economy. The benefits are more tangible.”

Today, as extreme weather events make the impact of climate change increasingly apparent, that conversation is beginning to show real progress. But that does not mean that the road ahead will be easy. For instance, while Thailand is an advanced economy and has taken important policy steps like establishing a carbon credit market, it cannot necessarily keep the pace of larger economies like the EU. The narrative here, unlike the digital economy, can easily become negative. For example, there are concerns that the changes in economic policy laws and frameworks needed to tackle the climate crisis are “difficult, burdensome, and high cost.”

“I think we need to find a new way to present these issues,” said Pitfield, highlighting the importance of multilateral cooperation for the environment, as well as that of capacity building and access to technologies, though this does not have to entail no-cost technology transfer. It also means acknowledging that while some terms, such as the circular economy, have become common parlance in policy circles, these issues may not be as clear-cut to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in smaller economies, she said.

While the narrative around environmental issues is complex, the advances seen at the international level on cooperation in trade policy for environmental protection are showing promise, panelists noted. “There is something very positive emerging here in Geneva” on trade and environment, confirmed Mina. Thirty years ago, “Geneva was the capital for trade negotiations globally.” “Today, I would say it is a key capital for trade negotiations and a key capital for trade policy and what trade policy can bring to broader global goals,” he said.

“Cooperation doesn’t necessarily mean jumping into rule making […] and we aren’t just jumping into rule-making,” Mina emphasized. An important area where trade policy can help is addressing environmentally harmful subsidies, Mina said. This would be “one of the most urgent things we can do to help the climate” and achieve the objective of net-zero emissions.

More broadly, Mina affirmed, policymakers must across the board ensure that in times of conflict and crisis, they “keep power out of international economic relations” and keep their focus instead on cooperation on imperatives such as food security, the digital economy, and the environment.

“The fact of cooperation needs to be treated as a precious thing in a world where multilateral regimes are under enormous pressure,” said Mina. “This cooperation needs to be fostered, and governments need to be open to different avenues for achieving that.”

Crucial in this international cooperation is talking not just to like-minded governments but also to the “un-likeminded,” said Pitfield. “Cooperation will start if you open your mind as well” and are willing to engage and exchange ideas, even when a given government is not ready to become an active participant in a particular initiative or negotiation.

The importance of speaking not just with those who agree, but with those who hold different views, was reiterated by fellow panelists, as well as event organizers. Rashid Kaukab, Executive Director, CUTS International, Geneva, flagged that transparency in these processes is crucial to have meaningful engagement by all those affected, as is capacity building. “Can we get out of our comfort modes and talk to the un-likeminded?” he asked. It is worth a try, cautiously and thoughtfully, especially when we are no longer “in a static world.”

Moving ahead in groups: considering systemic and development implications

During the question-and-answer session, some participants referred to the tension inherent in pursuing new rules in areas such as e-commerce among groups of WTO members, while many crucial issues on the existing multilateral agenda for negotiations have long struggled to advance.

For instance, Buddhi Prasad Upadhyaya, Counsellor and Deputy Permanent Representative (Commerce), Permanent Mission of Nepal in Geneva, reminded the audience about how the conclusion of the Uruguay Round in 1994, which set up the WTO, left some gaps to be addressed during negotiations further down the line, such as on agriculture.

“If we only focus on a few areas for developing new rules, by ignoring other aspects [of rules where urgent gaps exist] and also without taking into account the capacity constraints of some members, how can we ensure that the WTO will deliver in an equitable and just manner?” he asked.

Others asked about the systemic implications of subsets of the WTO’s membership moving ahead to craft rules and hold conversations on certain issue areas that do not currently have multilaterally agreed mandates, and doing so without the consensus of the full membership.

“Would you accept…that there is real, genuine, legitimate concern about the systemic consequences for the WTO of groups of members going off and embarking on negotiations that are basically ‘well let’s just do it and work out the legalities later,’ when there are pressing outstanding issues” that are extremely important, asked Jane Kelsey, Emeritus Professor, University of Auckland’s Faculty of Law.

Kelsey further noted that the 1998 work programme on e-commerce does not mandate negotiations and goes beyond the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions. She also flagged that the WTO’s Marrakesh Agreement refers to how members should go about adopting new rules and amending existing rules, and to the need for consensus from the Organization’s full membership.

At the same time, “it is important for all countries here to have the opportunity to do agenda setting,” from the smallest economies through to the medium-sized ones and beyond, Mina noted. “We’re not going to do that if we require absolute consensus at the start of any idea that is ultimately going to form the basis of a rule-making project,” he said, warning that this approach could have “systemic consequences of its own” in “completely stopping rule-making.”

“I completely agree with the comment from Nepal about the gap that was left over in the Uruguay Round on agriculture and the urgent need for us to get back to the table on that subject,” he added.

Under the WTO’s services rules, negotiating bilaterally and plurilaterally is foreseen and common, Pitfield added, referring to her own experiences as a services negotiator. This has bearings also on the services-related conversations involving digital trade. Furthermore, “I also want to distinguish between the discussion on the process and the outcome. The outcome, in the WTO, should be, in principle, MFN,” said Pitfield, referring to the principle of most-favored-nation treatment under the Organization’s rules.

Sofia Baliño is Senior Manager of Communications and Engagement at IISD.

To read the original policy brief, please click here.

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Sitting alongside other EV‐related provisions in IRA is one that makes generous purchase subsidies, aimed at promoting transition from gas‐powered to electric vehicles, available only in respect of EVs assembled in North America. This incentive is delivered through the tax system rather than at point‐of‐ sale as in the case of the 2009 “Cash for Clunkers” program, but it changes a vehicle’s effective purchase price on a dollar‐for‐dollar basis.

This measure is quite explicitly WTO‐inconsistent. It violates National Treatment (GATT Art. III) as it accords to imported EVs treatment less favorable than that accorded to like domestically‐assembled EVs. It violates MFN (GATT Art. I) as it accords to EVs assembled in the territory of other WTO Members treatment less favorable than that accorded to EVs assembled in Canada/Mexico. And in regard to the WTO’s subsidy rules, it makes access to a consumption subsidy contingent on the purchaser choosing a domestically‐assembled rather than imported EV; this is one of two types of subsidies that WTO rules categorically prohibit.

US officials may believe that these discriminatory aspects were necessary politically, in order to get an EV incentive passed. That argument may get some (limited) traction in the court of public opinion, but it will be useless in the event of a legal challenge if the United States seeks to justify its GATT breaches by invoking GATT Art. XX. Compressing the analysis quite a bit, the core problem is that the nationality-based element makes this measure a less, not more, potent consumer incentive for transitioning to EVs. It therefore interferes with, rather than being essential to, the articulated US objective of spurring transition. So even if the EV measure could be provisionally justified under one of the GATT Art. XX indents (not guaranteed), it would plainly fail the test imposed by the GATT Art. XX chapeau. The nationality‐based trade‐restrictive element is not only unnecessary; alternative measures lacking this element would contribute more strongly to meeting the claimed objective.

These WTO legal considerations were and are well‐known to the officials who worked on the IRA in the administration and on Capitol Hill. They did not blunder into a WTO breach. During prior U.S. government cycles, enactment of such a provision would have been hugely improbable. Chairs, Ranking Minority Members and Committee Staff at the Senate Finance and House Ways & Means committees have always regarded it as their obligation to call out, and try to purge, any WTO‐inconsistent elements of pending legislation long before the time of floor consideration. When WTO‐inconsistent proposals have somehow worked their way into bills that cleared one or both chambers, that fact has ordinarily been considered to justify a veto threat or a veto. As a result, it has long been possible to proudly observe that the United States does not knowingly and intentionally put new WTO‐breaching legislation into effect. It might sound mundane, not a proper subject for giving out medals, but this is in fact one of the key ways that international trade agreements deliver value over time to the countries that have negotiated and approved them. The agreements act as a filter on new measures and help to ensure that applied trade policies at the national level generally evolve in a liberal, rather than illiberal, direction.

That didn’t happen here. The EV provisions in question were largely authored by Majority committee staff in consultation with administration officials. The filters not only didn’t filter; they wrote the bill.

You don’t have to feel any particular way about climate change, or about government leadership in promoting an EV transition, to appreciate that this is significant.

No national public conversation has ever occurred in America about carbon control and the WTO. In the commentariat, some have long insisted that WTO rules were incompatible with timely/effective carbon control action, and would have to be either rewritten or simply breached. Others have contended that it makes sense to discover how much effective action we can achieve WTO‐consistently, and negotiate internationally for additional “policy space” only if events prove that to be necessary. One could imagine a US administration using its convening and bully pulpit powers to turn that academic debate into something larger and more accessible … with a view to achieving at least more predictability and ideally some level of public understanding and acceptance.

Again, that didn’t happen here. If Congress even momentarily considered WTO‐consistent EV incentives, it left no record of that consideration. The same is true of the administration. The result was a knowing, explicit, legislated breach of the WTO’s most central non‐discrimination obligations.

Could this really be worse than what happened during the USG’s last cycle? Let’s compare. Apart from periodic Presidential insults and tweeted ad hominem attacks, WTO supporters had three main grievances.

The US administration implemented Section 232 import relief on steel/aluminum and when challenged at the WTO invoked a GATT Art. XXI defense; many saw the latter as a clearly unacceptable stretch of the national security exception. The US administration also asserted that access to the GATT Art. XXI defense is self‐judging; while this stance reflected longstanding conventional wisdom, at least in the United States, some WTO supporters saw actually articulating it before a panel as an “anti‐WTO” thing to do.

Comment: With the “self‐judging” argument having been rejected in a separate WTO case, the US 232 measures may be held ineligible for a GATT Art. XXI defense. How the United States responds in that scenario could have systemic implications. The acts already taken – applying 232 measures, invoking GATT Art. XXI, and contending that a GATT Art. XXI claim is non‐justiciable – are not especially harmful to the WTO itself and do not reflect a high level of disrespect for the Organization’s rules. Also, this whole endeavor was a purely administrative action by the United States, attracting much more opposition than support on Capitol Hill. (And it has been left in place, which by now means affirmatively embraced, by the current US administration.)

The US administration implemented Section 301 tariffs on products from China, consciously exceeding tariff bindings (hence breaching WTO rules) with respect to products of that country.

Comment: I look at this as taking a bilateral fight out to the parking lot, with the result (among other things) that there ought to be less damage to breakable furnishings inside the building. It is unfortunate that things have deteriorated so significantly, but there was not a particularly WTO‐friendly path for this confrontation to follow. The US‐China trade relationship is effectively no longer WTO‐based. The possibility that would happen to a particular bilateral relationship has always existed – see the Uruguay Round Statement of Administrative Action on Section 301(b) – and indeed is baked into the WTO treaty structure which recognizes that any Member can breach particular obligations and accept WTO authorized countermeasures of equivalent commercial effect. No country would have joined a WTO which did not, or purported not to, allow such tactics. The US administration did not contend that its actions were WTO‐consistent, and therefore did not express disrespect for (any or all of) the WTO’s substantive rules. Also, and again, this whole endeavor was and remains a purely administrative action.

My purpose here is not to try to get inside anyone’s head and, for example, compare one US President’s actual quantum of respect for the WTO (and its rules) with another’s. Rather, the point is that objectively, the US government as a whole has now inflicted more damage on the WTO in the current cycle. Public comment so far (scant as noted above) has tended to focus on the combination, i.e., the fact that the current USG has both embraced the WTO‐disrespecting actions of the prior one and enacted the EV provision. They see this as signaling that parochialism in US trade policy is not temporary and that statements of American dedication to multilateralism cannot be relied upon.

I think this account, accurate enough in its punch‐line, understates the EV provision’s significance. Yes, disrespect for international obligations was already above historical norms, but the EV provision represents what Bridge players call a jump‐shift. Unlike prior US actions, it is a body‐blow to the WTO for many reasons but two especially: (1) because it was consciously enacted by the USG’s two political branches acting in concert, and (2) because it so clearly signals that the USG does not consider WTO-consistency as a relevant filter when new policy and legislation are being developed. Nothing we might do (or might have done) administratively in regard to AB appointments, or in regard to a particular bilateral trade relationship, or in regard to “national security”‐based trade restrictions in a couple of sectors, could be as systemically impactful.

That the offending measure is an environmental one should not make WTO supporters (among whom I count myself) any less concerned. The WTO rules pertinent to behind‐the‐border measures apply to – and codify guardrails for – environmental just as much as other types of measures. Environmentally themed protectionism is not necessarily more virtuous than other sorts of protectionism. Most important, WTO‐indifference displayed in one context cannot easily be limited to that context; it broadcasts a wider message. A WTO whose core substantive rules a major founding Member displays no compunction about explicitly violating, in enacting new legislation, is a WTO with little potential to deliver value by shaping national behavior.

WTO flouting of course has never been an exclusively American pastime, and just during the time period being discussed there have been some priceless non‐US examples. In a world where the United States can get blamed for just about anything regardless of its actual degree of responsibility, one hears charges that the national officials involved were simply walking through a door that America had swung open. If you subscribe to that narrative, then you should be especially worried because with the EV provision we have now quadrupled the width of that open door.

John is a 33 year veteran trade professional whose client and academic work focuses on US trade policy and WTO rules. He is currently the President of TradeWins LLC.

The opinions expressed are his own and do not reflect the views or interests of any of his clients or the Washington International Trade Association.

This piece originally appeared at the IELP blog, linked here.

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Analysts have described the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) as the Biden administration’s attempt at reigniting U.S. economic statecraft in Asia that was neglected by his predecessor. The U.S.’s engagement of Asian countries through the IPEF is also seen as a means to counter China’s strong influence in the region.

Trade agreements were historically used by the U.S. to build relationships with allies and partners, and to cement American international influence. However, the IPEF is not meant to be a traditional trade agreement as there are no new market access benefits on the table for participating countries. It instead opts for a modular approach where countries are free to select specific pillars of the IPEF in which they wish to participate while opting out of others.

Each pillar represents other non-market access related aspects of trade and economic cooperation. As it stands, the IPEF is organised along four pillars: (1) trade, (2) supply chains, (3) clean energy, decarbonisation and infrastructure, and (4) tax and anti-corruption. Instead of market access, the “trade” pillar encompasses other trade-related issues such as environmental and labour standards. On these two fronts, the U.S. looks poised to push for more stringent standards that Southeast Asian countries might find tough to accept. If the goal of the IPEF is to strengthen relationships with countries in the region and act as an alternative to what China has to offer, pushing for tough environmental and labour standards might prove to be a contentious issue that would detract from these broader geopolitical objectives.

In May 2022, U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai had already signalled that the IPEF will involve the pursuit of strong labour and environmental standards. The expectation is that these standards will involve some emulation of the US-Canada-Mexico Agreement (USCMA), which Ambassador Tai hailed as “a new model for trade agreements”. The USCMA contains the most stringent environmental and labour standards in any trade agreement ever ratified, which Congressional Democrats had a hand in pushing through.

Congressional Democrats have historically made their support for potential U.S. trade agreements contingent upon the inclusion of environmental and labour protections. Even though the IPEF, in its current form, does not require congressional approval, the Biden administration would likely still face pressure from the Democratic Party to include such standards in the IPEF.

The USMCA contains several provisions that essentially allow the U.S. to withdraw trade benefits if environmental or labour standards have been breached. Labour standards include prohibitions on forced labour, respect for the right of association with a union and collective bargaining, and protection for migrant workers. On the environmental front, of note is the mention of obligations to combat illegal fishing and logging and the obligation to commit to seven multilateral environmental agreements, including the Montreal Protocol and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Contravention of standards enumerated in the agreement would allow the U.S. to trigger a dispute settlement procedure which might ultimately lead to the imposition of coercive trade measures, such as raising tariffs or withdrawing other trade benefits. Additionally, the USCMA allows the U.S. to block imports from specific facilities found to have been in breach of labour rights obligations.

The U.S. seems determined to use the USCMA as a model for enshrining potential environmental and labour provisions in the IPEF. However, it is hard to see how these provisions might work considering that even if they were violated, the U.S. cannot withdraw market access benefits. Pushing hard to include these standards without commensurate market access offerings would likely raise contentions among Southeast Asian signatories of the IPEF.

There are already signals that labour rights issues will prove to be contentious for Southeast Asian countries. The U.S. has identified Vietnam’s textile industry as part of a cotton supply chain that uses forced labour from the Xinjiang region in China, which could trigger import blocks under the U.S.’s recently passed Uyghur Forced Labour Protection Act. Thailand may find itself in a similar position on its use of cotton imports from China. Earlier, two Malaysian companies, Sime Darby Plantation Berhad and FGV Holdings Berhad, had their palm oil exports blocked at the U.S. border in late 2020 on allegations of forced labour practices.

In the negotiations to come, several scenarios might play out. Market access has been the primary carrot that has historically incentivised the U.S.’s trade partners to swallow tough pills. If the U.S. is insistent on including strong environmental and labour standards in the IPEF, it might find itself hard pressed to design an alternative incentive structure to make these provisions more palatable for Southeast Asian signatories. Experts have speculated that this may involve improving trade facilitation such as removing technical and regulatory barriers to trade to boost exports to the U.S. Whether this would be enough to replace traditional market access benefits such as lower tariffs remains to be seen.

The U.S. could also take a softer approach by leaving out coercive enforcement and instead focusing on cooperative mechanisms such the provision of technical assistance and capacity building to work towards higher environmental and labour standards. Southeast Asian countries might be more willing to accept tough standards in exchange for such goodies.

If nothing can fill the void of market access benefits and the U.S. insists on including strong environmental and labour standards, the risk is that Southeast Asian countries may opt out of the IPEF’s “trade” pillar entirely. In this scenario, it is doubtful how the goal of strengthening economic engagement can be achieved, given that the “trade” pillar is likely to form the core of IPEF. Moreover, the IPEF is not only about trade and economic engagement but also about fulfilling the geopolitical objective of strengthening and cementing relationships with key partners in Asia amidst the U.S.’s intensifying competition with China. With this in mind, Biden’s administration will need to think through how to reconcile domestic pressures to include strong environmental and labour standards with the IPEF’s broader geopolitical goals.

Darren Cheong was Research Associate with the Regional Strategic and Political Studies Programme, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.

To read the full post, please click here.

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The full text of the legislation is here, but since reading legislative text is often a nightmare, I’m going to rely on this overview from U.S. trade policy expert Tori Smith:

Regional Content Requirements

In addition, the bill adds production requirements for automakers to have their vehicles qualify for the tax credits. For a vehicle to qualify, it must undergo final assembly in North America. This provision is less restrictive than a previous version of the policy, which required American production and favored unionized factories to manufacture these vehicles. Because of the integrated automotive supply chains in North America, neighboring countries were very concerned with the original proposal. Canada even suggested that the previous version would violate the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The Inflation Reduction Act avoids that issue, but it could still be viewed as discriminatory against other foreign automakers, namely those based in the United Kingdom, the European Union, Japan, and South Korea. Automakers have diverse global supply chains, and some may not be as present in North America.

Starting in 2024, under the Inflation Reduction Act, EVs would need to have at least 40 percent of their critical minerals sourced for batteries from countries with which the United States has a free trade agreement (FTA).[4] Critical minerals can also be made from materials recycled in North America. The required percentage of content for critical minerals would then increase over the following two years and by 2026 the regional content for critical minerals would rise to 80 percent.

The bill also specifies that no vehicle produced after 2024 can have a battery with critical minerals that were “extracted, processed, or recycled by a foreign entity of concern.” A “foreign entity of concern” is defined very broadly and could feasibly apply to China.[5] That China performs an estimated 80 percent of global mineral processing and refining makes this particular provision problematic.[6]

Under the bill, the battery of an EV would be required to have at least 50 percent North American content by 2024 and be of 100 percent North American origin by 2028. In 2020, the United States was home to 70 percent of battery cell capacity, meaning an overwhelming portion of the end process to make a battery takes place domestically. The raw materials in a lithium-ion battery, however, represent most of the total cost of the battery. The cost of cathodes and anodes, the positive and negative electrodes in a battery, alone are estimated to represent 40 percent of the total cost of a lithium-ion battery.

In terms of the consistency of the IRA provisions with WTO law, I’m going to focus on the WTO’s non-discrimination obligations as applied to the assembly/content requirements, but there is also an issue with how the tax credit itself would be examined under the subsidy provisions. (And let me note that my thinking here has been informed by discussions with David Kleimann and Jesse Kreier, but of course all errors are my own).

As a general matter, domestic content requirements will violate GATT Article III:4. The law is clear on this, and in my view the policy is a good one. The WTO doesn’t prohibit protectionism entirely, but it does try to steer it towards more transparent methods such as tariffs. If governments want to protect their domestic EV industry from competition, they are allowed to do so, but they have to negotiate for that ability as part of an exchange of tariff concessions. If governments undermine the carefully crafted balance of tariffs by using domestic content requirements in national and local laws and regulations, the system could quickly fall apart. If one government does it, others are likely to respond with their own content requirements, and we could get into a protectionist spiral. A core purpose of trade agreements is to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

In addition, large wealthy countries would have a general advantage in a system without rules, but also a specific advantage in a system with complex domestic content requirements, because implementation of such measures is more technical than tariffs and requires more resources.

As a result, there is broad agreement that domestic content requirements are a bad idea, and they should be, and are, prohibited by WTO and FTA rules. Obviously, there are some protectionists (and perhaps a few others) who disagree, but I’m just saying the consensus is pretty clear on this.

Of course, this consensus doesn’t mean that governments never use these measures. It just means that when they do, a WTO complaint is brought in response, and there have been several WTO disputes over the past few years reaffirming all of this.

In the case of these new IRA EV tax credits, however, things get a little complicated. I’m not sure I have all the answers at this point, but I’m going to set out two key issues here and offer a few thoughts.

First, a “final assembly” requirement strikes me as different than a content requirement in ways that could be important. In theory, final assembly can take place with 100% foreign parts, and as a result, maybe it does not actually require that inputs be from any particular place. Thus, perhaps it is not the same thing as a “domestic content” requirement. Now, in practice, such a requirement might steer the assembler to use local or regional inputs, because those inputs are physically close to where the assembly has to take place. But that ends up being a de facto content requirement rather than a de jure one, and those can be difficult to prove.

Second, there is a question that comes up under all three of the aspects of the IRA EV tax credit measure (final assembly, critical minerals, batteries): Could these requirements be justified under GATT Article XXIV as measures related to a free trade area? Each of the three requirements works a little differently, but all of them are tied to the North American region (and thus perhaps to the USMCA) or to U.S. FTAs. I don’t see how else the U.S. can justify these measures under WTO law, so I’m wondering if at least someone involved in the creation of this measure had in mind an Article XXIV defense (others may not have been concerned about WTO law). 

It’s important to think about what WTO obligations we are talking about, and the obligations that come to mind here are GATT Articles I:1 and III:4, as well as SCM Agreement Article 3.1(b). With 3.1(b), there is a question about whether Article XXIV could apply at all to a non-GATT agreement. But putting that aside, does Article XXIV even work here? How do these requirements fit under GATT Article XXIV:8(b), which states:

(b) A free-trade area shall be understood to mean a group of two or more customs territories in which the duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce (except, where necessary, those permitted under Articles XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV and XX) are eliminated on substantially all the trade between the constituent territories in products originating in such territories.

Are these North America/FTA assembly/content requirements just part of the elimination of duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce on substantially all trade in the free trade area, and therefore justified under Article XXIV? At this point, I’m not sure, and I’m reluctant to spend too much time thinking about it until 1) the measure actually becomes law, and 2) the U.S. actually invokes Article XXIV. If the U.S. doesn’t invoke Article XXIV, it’s not clear to me what they will cite as a justification though. (Obviously there is GATT Article XX(g), but I don’t see how these requirements could satisfy the Article XX chapeau).

One other legal point here: The “foreign entity of concern” language probably means that GATT Article XXI (security) would be invoked for that specific provision.

Finally, with regard to the effectiveness of the policy as set out in this statute, Tori raises a point about the difficulty of fulfilling the particular requirements in the IRA:

The regional requirements in the Inflation Reduction Act are likely impossible for automakers to fulfill because they severely reduce the sourcing options for inputs. For example, Argentina is responsible for roughly 10 percent of lithium production, but the United States does not have a free trade agreement with Argentina. Moreover, virtually all cathode and anode production is concentrated in China, Japan, and South Korea. South Korea is the only country with which the United States has a free trade agreement, and it represents only 15 percent of cathode production.[7]

If we want these tax credits to be helpful in encouraging people to buy electric vehicles, fewer restrictions on their use would be better. A version of the measure that did not have assembly/content requirements would lead to more electric vehicles being used, but that is not the version we have right now. It will be interesting to see whether the vehicle-makers and government officials interpreting and applying the rules will find a way to adapt so that consumers can actually make use of them.

Simon Lester is President of WorldTradeLaw.net LLC and Trade Policy Analyst of the Cato Institute.

To read the full post, please click here.

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While the politics of the decision may be tough for the president, the economic, environmental, and legal case against the tariffs is easy, and he should let them expire.

Background

In 2018, President Trump imposed safeguard tariffs and tariff‐​rate quotas (TRQs) on most crystalline silicon photovoltaic (CSPV) products, including the cells in solar panels, pursuant to under Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974. Only solar cells (but not modules) are subject to the TRQ, which permits a set annual quantity of goods to be imported tariff free and imposes a tariff on any additional quantities. Safeguard measures are intended to be a temporary restriction on certain imported goods to shield domestic industry from injurious foreign competition. In a 586‐​page report, however, the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) unanimously recommended that President Biden extend the current TRQs and 18 percent tariffs for four more years, slightly reducing the tariff rate each year.

The Economic Case Against Extending the Tariffs

The Commission determined that the tariffs and TRQs remain necessary to “prevent or remedy serious injury to the U.S. industry” and that the domestic industry is “making a bodog poker review positive adjustment” to import competition. However, the USITC’s conclusion that the domestic industry is thriving as a result of these tariffs is befuddling: Multiple sources have reported that the solar industry lost jobs despite the tariffs. The Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA) estimates that, although the manufacturers requesting the solar safeguards promised to create 45,000 American jobs, they actually lost 6,000 jobs since the safeguard was implemented, while the industry as a whole (including downstream installers) “missed out on more than 62,000 jobs, $19 billion in private sector investment and more than 10 gigawatts of solar deployment.”

Not only have the tariffs not supported new solar manufacturing jobs, the ITC’s assessment of the tariffs in early 2020 found that there was “no confirmed new investments in U.S. cell manufacturing.” In fact, the only remaining U.S. producer, Panasonic, was closing down in 2020, while the original petitioner, Suniva, “had filed for bankruptcy protection and ceased production of cells and modules in April 2017.” Some U.S. module production increased, but it was mainly done by using imported cells. Furthermore, imports overall in these products increased substantially. Thus, the tariffs have not helped the very companies petitioning for them, nor have they had the intended effect of reducing imports to help the domestic industry fill domestic demand. (Ironically, U.S. solar manufacturers’ problems may be compounded by other tariffs — in particular the 25 percent and 10 percent ones on steel and aluminum, respectively, that President Trump imposed and President Biden has mostly maintained.)

Finally, it should be noted that eliminating the solar safeguards would not fully expose domestic manufacturers to import competition, as solar imports from China—the world’s biggest producer of solar energy products—are subject to former President Trump’s 25 percent “Section 301” duties (which Biden has also maintained), and there are antidumping and countervailing duties on imports of solar cells and modules from China and Taiwan. Protection from China will almost certainly continue—although the U.S. import restrictions also don’t seem to be boosting U.S. solar panel production and may have actually undermined it by leading to a U.S.-China dispute over polysilicon, a vital solar input, that devastated the once‐​dominant American polysilicon industry.

Once again, American protectionism has failed to achieve its primary economic objectives.

The Environmental (and Consumer) Case

There are also compelling climate reasons for eliminating the safeguards. The climate stakes are clear. The Department of Energy predicts that as much as 40 percent of electricity in the United States could be solar by 2035 and as much as 45 percent by 2050, and that the U.S. solar industry could employ as many as 1.5 million people by 2035—without raising electricity prices. Biden’s goal is to make it more accessible to consumers to install solar panels. However, the tariffs are doing the opposite. Some estimates find the tariffs have increased the cost of installation between 2 and 4 percent (depending on the year as the rates decrease) for the average American homeowner. These percentages may seem small, but solar panels, though decreasing in price, are still not cheap, and the tariffs have increased costs to Americans by more than $600 per installation.

Lowering the prices of solar products by eliminating the tariffs would help Biden achieve his climate goals—something that climate activists and U.S. solar companies not demanding protection have repeatedly made clear.

The Legal Case

As a result of U.S. restrictions on Chinese imports, since 2017 the leading foreign sources of solar products in the United States have been Malaysia, Vietnam, and South Korea—not Chinese solar producers, which have indeed benefited from significant government subsidies. However, it is important to note that there has been no allegation in the safeguard proceedings of any unfair trade practice by China or anyone else. There need not be because neither Section 201 nor the WTO Safeguards Agreement requires it. Instead, safeguards are intended to prevent injury to a domestic industry and allow it to adjust to import competition where certain economic conditions (e.g., a recent surge in imports) are met. (The longstanding theory underlying such trade restrictions is that countries will be less likely to make trade‐​liberalizing commitments in the first place if they are not given an “escape clause” when imports are in such increased quantities and occur under such conditions as to cause serious injury or threaten it to the domestic industry.)

China challenged the solar safeguards in WTO dispute settlement, but a WTO panel in September ruled in favor of the United States, saying it had not acted inconsistently with WTO safeguard rules by applying them (thus putting paid to the frequently voiced but bogus view within the Beltway that previous WTO rulings had made it impossible for a safeguard measure such as this one to survive WTO legal scrutiny). China has appealed this panel ruling to the WTO Appellate Body. However, because the United States—first under Trump and now under Biden—has refused to agree to appoint new Appellate Body members to fill vacancies, the tribunal currently exists only in the pages of the WTO treaty. There is no one to hear the appeal. As a result, the legal legitimacy of the solar tariffs under international law has, at least de facto, been affirmed.

That said, another legal factor does argue against extending the solar safeguard tariffs: under WTO rules—because there is no allegation of an unfair trade practice to justify a safeguard measure—countries whose exports are affected are entitled to compensation for the “adverse effects of the measure on their trade.” This compensation takes the form of the removal of previously granted trade concessions in other areas of trade—i.e., retaliation against the WTO Member imposing the safeguard. Thus, other U.S. businesses and workers will pay the price for extending the solar safeguard tariffs – a factor that U.S. law requires be taken into account (“the impact on United States industries and firms as a result of international obligations regarding compensation”).

Generally, compensation cannot be sought during the first three years of a safeguard measure, but that waiting period is over. Ten WTO members—China, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, the European Union, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam—have already taken the initial steps to seek compensation equal to the trade losses they have suffered because of the solar safeguard tariffs. There may be more. Because these concessions have not been forthcoming from either Trump or Biden, these countries may already have the right to retaliate through economic sanctions. Extending the tariffs will create more potential claims for compensation at the WTO. Since the safeguard measure was imposed, more than $15 billion in the solar products covered by it have been imported into the United States and have been subjected to these tariffs. Thus, billions of dollars of U.S. exports are exposed to increased retaliatory tariffs by other WTO members through these potential economic sanctions.

Conclusion

The best decision by President Biden would be to refuse to extend these solar tariffs—one of many examples of how freeing trade can help counter climate change. Yet what may well prevent Biden from making the best decision are the politics involved and, especially, the prospect of being accused of favoring China and abandoning U.S. labor unions. But surely Joe Biden should have realized by now that, in any trade decision he makes that relates to China and regardless of what he actually does, the president will be accused by his political opponents of kowtowing to the Chinese government. And if his goal is to expand the American solar industry, the president shouldn’t be making it more expensive for the industry to produce and install solar products. President Biden should ditch the political second‐​guessing and simply do what’s best for American businesses and workers by not extending these safeguard tariffs. Separately, he should remove the duties on solar cells and modules from China and Taiwan, Section 301 tariffs on Chinese products, and Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum. And then the administration should go a step even farther and remove all tariffs on all environmental goods.

But all of those actions take effort, while the safeguard decision simply requires the president to do nothing. And if countering climate change is really a Biden administration priority, nothing is precisely what he should do.

James Bacchus is a member of the Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, the Distinguished University Professor of Global Affairs and director of the Center for Global Economic and Environmental Opportunity at the University of Central Florida

Gabriella Beaumont‐​Smith is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. Her research focuses on the economics of U.S. trade policy.

To read the full commentary from the CATO Institute, please click here. 

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If the meetings in Glasgow have made one thing clear, though, it’s that voluntary international commitments are only as strong as the will of their members to realize a net-zero future. As a new report by the Washington Post this week highlighted, there are significant discrepancies in the methodology countries are using to report emissions to the UNFCCC, resulting in gross under-reporting. These discrepancies further undermine the credibility of the pledges being made, which have already come under criticism by the scientific community for being insufficient to meet the climate challenge.

Moreover, the agreements reached in Glasgow—like the UNFCCC itself—are limited in their ability to hold countries accountable for achieving their goals. If the world is going to meet the objectives laid out in the UNFCCC, the U.S. and its allies need to use every tool available to reduce their own carbon emissions while encouraging—with carrots or sticks—their global partners to do the same.

Trade policy is a tool that can complement UNFCCC efforts to reduce global carbon emissions—but it must be deployed strategically. Of course, trade policy has always overlapped with environmental policy, even if that overlap wasn’t always made explicit in trade agreements. As the free flow of goods across international borders has increased in the past half century, so, too, has the carbon emissions created by that exchange. In recent years, U.S. free trade agreements (FTAs) have included environmental provisions designed to offset this increase and address the downstream environmental impacts of freer trade, including provisions to combat illegal logging, promote forest conservation, improve air quality monitoring, harmonize energy performance standards, and liberalize environmental goods tariffs.

To date, however, trade policy has been underutilized as a tool to contribute to an overall global reduction in carbon emissions. With climate now at the forefront of America’s domestic and foreign policy, it’s time to take a fresh look at how trade policy could be used to address the climate crisis.

In reality, trade policy presents a range of tools to help drive better environmental outcomes within and across borders. For example, countries can incentivize the uptake of environmental goods and technologies by lowering or eliminating tariffs on those goods and technologies, thereby making those technologies cost-competitive with dirtier alternatives and more affordable for developing nations. Nations with high environmental standards can also use trade policy to level the economic playing field between themselves and their competitor nations, whose lower environmental standards and lower costs of compliance give their domestic industries a competitive advantage. For instance, adjusting the price of imported goods at the border based on their carbon content—a tool known as a “carbon border adjustment mechanism” or CBAM—not only creates a fairer competitive environment for producers in the U.S. and other countries with similarly high environmental standards, but removes the economic incentives to engage in environmental arbitrage by retaining lower standards, spurring a net-zero ‘race to the top’ among trade partners.

These are only a few of the numerous ways that trade policy can be used to complement the UNFCCC efforts that are already underway while simultaneously holding countries accountable for meeting their commitments. In the coming weeks, Silverado will be continuing this series of climate-related blog posts by examining some fundamental questions about trade policy’s role in addressing the climate crisis. These questions include:

• What should the objectives of a worker and climate-centric U.S. trade policy be, and what pitfalls should it avoid?
• What trade tools are available to the U.S. and its allies to realize their goals— including a carbon club, carbon border adjustment mechanisms, trade liberalization measures in environmental goods and technologies, preferences,  and trade capacity building? What are the pros and cons of each option?
• What is the most effective approach: unilateral, bilateral, plurilateral, multilateral, or some combination thereof?
• What role should the World Trade Organization (WTO) play in advancing a climate-centric trade policy?
• Do the existing legal frameworks provide countries with the flexibility that they need to use trade as a tool for combating climate change?

There are no simple answers to these questions, but now is the time for the U.S. to invest its intellectual and political resources into answering them. If we wait too long, we risk missing the window for capturing the power of trade to further global environmental objectives and win first place in the global race for a net-zero economy.

To read the full commentary from the Silverado Policy Accelerator, please click here.

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