Both international trade and climate policy are integral parts of countries’ overall foreign policy challenges. A comprehensive understanding of their interconnection and how to make use of trade policy instruments in ramping up climate action can therefore be seen as a crucial element of successful climate diplomacy.

As part of the Climate Strategies project on “Making the International Trade System work for Climate Change”, this recent working paper discusses the relationship between the regimes established by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the provisions and pending disputes, the role of regional trade agreements as well as upcoming issues emerging from the Paris Agreement. In doing so, they highlight several options for addressing this relationship from a legal, institutional and policy perspective, assuming that instead of blind condemnation, trade rules could also be looked at as something that could potentially help to achieve transformative change in climate policy.

You can find the full brief and more information on the project here. Also see this article by Susanne Dröge and Harro van Asselt, which draws on some of the findings of the working paper.