Four Changes to Trade Rules to Facilitate Climate Change Action

Abstract

In Greenprint: A New Approach to Cooperation on Climate Change, we argued that only radical technological progress can reconcile climate change goals with the development and energy aspirations of humanity. Generating technological progress requires deploying the full range of policy instruments—to raise the price of carbon and to provide incentives for research and development of green technologies. Some of these policy instruments affect international trade and are therefore covered by the rules of the WTO. In this paper, we ask how trade policy and trade rules can facilitate action on climate change.

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