Sixteen of the seventeen warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, with 2016 being the hottest of them. Sea ice is melting and oceans are heating, leading to rising sea levels which threaten the very existence of many low-lying countries. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more intense.
In 2015, the world’s nations came together under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and agreed to limit average global temperature increases to well below 2˚C. Yet, country pledges currently don’t add up; a recent report by UNEP indicates that we are heading for a temperature increase of 3.2 ˚C by the end of the century.
Against this backdrop, it is crucial that every effort is made to scale up climate action. Trade has an important role to play in this regard. For example, as manufacturing of clean energy goods is currently concentrated in a handful of countries, trade is the means to allow all countries to access these technologies and transition to a cleaner energy mix. Moreover, international trade can make it possible to favour consumption of low carbon goods. Yet, trade barriers remain in the area and there is no coherent strategy for addressing them.
At the same time, cooperation on international trade rules is crucial so as not to undermine countries’ efforts as they implement their climate policies. For example, carbon pricing policies could, if unmatched, distort competitiveness, ultimately to the detriment of climate action. There is also a need to address climate policies in the transport sector, which have obvious trade links.
How to go about generating momentum for action on trade and climate change? Attempts to even host a discussion about climate change in the WTO don’t garner enough support to make it onto the agenda, and the UNFCCC is similarly reluctant to address trade issues.
The G20 is a promising avenue for taking up this work, at a time when collaboration, dialogue and experience sharing are much needed. The recent G20 Hamburg summit indeed showed that there is a need for alignment as well as ambition on both trade and on climate.
This event will present and discuss a White Paper currently being prepared by ICTSD, building on a year-long effort to conceive an agenda on trade and climate change for the G20, generously supported by the KR Foundation.
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