Global environmental policy and global trade policy
By: Jeffrey Frankel
Contributors: Project on International Climate Agreements (Harvard University); John F. Kennedy School of Government
Series: Discussion paper -- 08-14; Faculty research working papers series -- RWP08-058; Discussion paper (Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements) -- 08-14; Faculty research working paper series -- RWP08-058
Publisher: Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass.]
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] /
Subjects: Environmental policy; Economic policy; Greenhouse gas mitigation; Economic aspects; Carbon sequestration; Climatic changes
Description: The global climate regime and the global trade policy regime are on a collision course. National efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) instill among environmentalists fears of leakage and among businesspeople fears of lost competitiveness. Policy-makers respond to these fears. In 2008, legislative attempts in both Washington, DC, and Brussels to enact long-term targets for reduced emission of GHGs included provisions for possible penalties against imports from countries perceived as non-participating. Trade measures, if well designed, could in theory be WTO-compatible, in light of the precedent of the shrimp-turtle case, in particular. But the actual provisions emerging from the political process are likely to violate the rules of the WTO, which poses the scenario of a WTO panel rejecting a major country's climate change legislation. That would be a nightmare for the supporters of the WTO and free trade as much as for the supporters of the Kyoto Protocol and environmental protection. The issue is just the latest and largest instance of fears among many environmentalists that the WTO is an obstacle to their goals in general. For many critics, the WTO is a symbol of globalization, which they fear. The first part of this paper discusses the broader issue of whether environmental goals in general are threatened by the global free trade system. The paper then focuses exclusively on the narrower question of trade measures in the effort to implement climate change policy and whether they are likely to be successful. It concludes with specific recommendations for how border measures could be designed so that they were more likely to be true to the goal of reducing leakage and yet consistent with the WTO.
Notes: "October 2008."

Also issued in print as part of the Faculty Research Working Paper Series.

Includes bibliographical references.

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