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11. Trade and Climate Change: Synergies and Conflicts

Author:
Ryerson Neal
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Participants from academia and various levels of government gathered in Ottawa to discuss the often underappreciated interplay between the international climate agenda and the global trade system. The trade system has traditionally supported open flows of goods and services by disciplining tariffs, as well as trade-distorting subsidies and regulations. But there is an emerging tension between this approach and the desire of governments to address climate change through potentially trade-distorting domestic regulations and green subsidies. The challenge for policy makers is how to maintain relatively free, undistorted trade, while still giving countries sufficient policy space to implement effective measures to combat climate change.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Regulation, Green Technology, and Free Trade
Political Geography:
Global Focus

12. From Fisheries Subsidies to Energy Reform under International Trade Law

Author:
Markus Gehring
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Economic, environmental and other international regimes are jointly facing a wicked climate problem. Climate change impacts on human activity and ecosystems have the potential to jeopardize attaining shared goals of these different regimes, and yet can only be addressed by overcoming the division and occasional conflict between their different stakeholders and areas of focus. Discussions have begun in the hallways on how trade law could best be leveraged to bring the international community together to prevent climate-related harms. This paper argues that World Trade Organization (WTO) fisheries subsidies negotiations should be a priority area for those practitioners and researchers building links between trade and climate law. It is submitted that successful fisheries subsidies reform will directly contribute to the implementation of the Paris Agreement and to the delivery of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 (“Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”), given the important synergies that exist between the transformation of fisheries subsidies and climate mitigation and adaptation. Furthermore, fisheries subsidies negotiations are of crucial importance for international climate law because they can provide a case study to learn from and increase chances of success with fossil fuel subsidy reform. This paper provides a brief historical overview of trade law negotiations aiming to reduce and reform fisheries subsidies, and shows the important synergies that exist between reforming fisheries subsidies and implementing the Paris Agreement as well as the SDGs. The paper then extracts five drivers for success that can be observed from the current process of fisheries subsidies reform: leadership of key countries and of the WTO Secretariat itself; meticulous academic, scientific and policy background analysis; commitment by civil society and the private sector; the development of alternatives to those subsidies that encourage overfishing; and inter-regime learning. Lastly, the paper discusses the transferability of these drivers for success to prevent climate harms and to address more general challenges encountered in both the climate and trade regimes.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, World Trade Organization, Maritime, and Fishing
Political Geography:
Global Focus

13. Climate Change Disclosure of the Financial Sector

Author:
Zachary Folger-Laronde and Olaf Weber
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
As the impacts of climate change continue to grow in severity, focus has turned toward the climate change implications associated with the products and services of the financial sector. It is estimated that the indirect carbon emissions, which are caused in the financial sector by borrowers, investees and financed projects, are 50 to 200 times larger than the direct impacts of the financial sector. It is evident that a decarbonization strategy is needed for more than the fossil fuel industry and will require significant changes to most economic sectors. This added focus toward the financial sector has led to demands for enhanced disclosure of climate change information with regard to financed clients and projects. However, there remains limited guidance in how the financial sector should disclose its carbon performance to its shareholders and stakeholders. This paper reviews the highlights from an empirical study that investigated the types of carbon performance voluntarily disclosed by banks and the type of carbon impact emissions disclosed. Policy recommendations are made that aim to facilitate and standardize disclosures.
Topic:
Climate Change, Finance, Fossil Fuels, and Carbon Emissions
Political Geography:
Global Focus

14. The Content of a WTO Climate Waiver

Author:
James Bacchus
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Neither the trade regime nor the climate regime has so far displayed any willingness to confront the coming clash between climate ambitions and trade rules. To minimize the economic and political risks of such a collision, the members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) should adopt a WTO climate waiver. To further carbon pricing and to facilitate the necessary green transition in the global economy, the core of a WTO climate waiver should be a waiver from the applicable trade rules for national measures that: discriminate on the basis of carbon and other greenhouse gases used or emitted in making a product; fit the definition of a climate response measure as defined by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; and do not discriminate in a manner that constitutes a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade. A WTO climate waiver should also include support for trade restrictions by carbon markets and climate clubs, trade disciplines on fossil fuel subsidies, and green subsidies that support innovative outcomes rather than particular technologies. Along with a climate waiver, WTO members should also confirm that carbon taxes qualify as border tax adjustments under trade rules. The adoption of a WTO climate waiver is a central and critical part of the overall reimagining of international trade law that is needed to fulfill the stated WTO goal of engaging in trade and other economic endeavours consistently with the objectives of sustainable development.
Topic:
Climate Change, International Trade and Finance, World Trade Organization, and Green Technology
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15. Participation of Non-party Stakeholders under the UNFCCC: Options for Future Engagement

Author:
Freedom-Kai Phillips
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Participation of “non-party stakeholders” in the work of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was affirmed in the decision adopting the Paris Agreement and flagged in the preamble of the agreement itself. This paper discusses the current approaches to stakeholder participation under the UNFCCC and explains concerns regarding the existing model.
Topic:
Climate Change, United Nations, and Green Technology
Political Geography:
Global Focus

16. The Case for a WTO Climate Waiver

Author:
James Bacchus
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
There is a looming collision between the rules frameworks of the two separate international institutions that have been created and entrusted with addressing trade and climate change. Links between trade and climate change can no longer be ignored by either the World Trade Organization (WTO) or the Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Neither has considered the consequences of the trade restrictions that are likely to be part of many national measures enacted to address climate change, which will fall within the scope of the WTO Agreement and will surely lead to a lengthy WTO dispute settlement process. Such trade-restrictive national measures will be fed by domestic fears of “carbon leakage” and a loss of national competitiveness, and WTO disputes resulting from such measures will confront numerous unanswered legal questions due to an absence of relevant WTO jurisprudence. To minimize the political risks of such a collision to both the WTO and the COP, and to combine the most benefit for the climate with the least risk to trade, a WTO climate waiver is urgently needed. The adoption of a WTO climate waiver should be only the first of the ways in which WTO members revise and realign WTO rules in accordance with the objectives of sustainable development.
Topic:
Climate Change
Political Geography:
Global Focus

17. Assessing the Governance Practices of Sustainability Reporting

Author:
Jason Thistlethwaite and Melissa Menzies
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
To promote climate change risk mitigation in financial markets, the Financial Stability Board recently proposed the creation of a Climate Disclosure Task Force, coordinated through the G20, to develop standards for companies to disclose their exposure to climate change risks. With more than 400 existing disclosure schemes, this task will be challenging. This brief identifies the key categories of governance practices that must be addressed, how these divergent practices challenge end-users, and how the establishment of criteria that define effective and efficient reporting is a critical first step for the Climate Disclosure Task Force.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Markets, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18. Growth, Innovation and COP 21: The Case for New Investment In Innovation Infrastructure

Author:
Céline Bak
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
On the way to Washington, DC, for a September 2015 visit, Chinese President Xi Jinping stopped in Seattle, WA, to sign an agreement aimed at combatting climate change by increasing the business ties between Chinese and US clean technology companies (South China News 2015). Five US states signed the agreement on commerce between China and clean-tech businesses from California, Iowa, Michigan, Oregon and Washington. On the same day, Bill Gates’s energy company, TerraPower, signed an agreement with the China National Nuclear Corporation for joint cooperation on next-generation renewable and fusion nuclear power. In early 2015, Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund invested in General Fusion, a Canadian company based in Vancouver, to advance its energy innovation.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Science and Technology, Treaties and Agreements, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
China

19. Uncovering the Implications of the Paris Agreement: Climate Change as a Catalyst for Transformative Sustainability in Cities

Author:
Sarah Birch
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
Leaders, negotiators and scientists returned home from the recent United Nations climate change negotiations in Paris with a new mandate: to explore pathways to a world that warms no more than 1.5°C; to finance climate change adaptation and mitigation in developing countries at a meaningful pace and scale; and, ultimately, to create real policy tools that can deliver prosperity that is not so fundamentally tied to burning fossil carbon. The Paris Agreement is historic in that it is universal (both industrialized and less-developed nations have agreed to the text), a heavy focus is placed on transparency and reporting of progress, and opportunities to periodically reevaluate and ratchet up ambition are built into the process. The ultimate power of this agreement, however, is not in its technicalities and legal implications. Rather, the Paris Agreement represents the manifestation of collective ambition, creating and demonstrating shared norms around the reality of climate change and the responsibility to act. This international process of negotiation and commitment is triggering a wave of conversations about how to reach these ambitious greenhouse gas reduction and adaptation targets. This will require a rapid and fundamental transformation of all sectors, including the design of urban spaces and the ways in which we produce and consume energy.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Treaties and Agreements, United Nations, and Regulation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

20. Assessing the Governance Practices of Sustainability Reporting

Author:
Jason Thistlewaite and Melissa Menzies
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
To promote climate change risk mitigation in financial markets, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) recently proposed the creation of a Climate Disclosure Task Force, coordinated through the G20, to develop standards for companies to disclose their exposure to climate change risks. With more than 400 existing disclosure schemes that employ a range of different standards to measure climate change risks and corporate sustainability, this task will be challenging. But the diversity of schemes also represents an opportunity to assess which practices are effective at improving corporate accountability for sustainability performance, as well as efficient at producing comparable reports that do not unfairly burden reporting organizations. This brief identifies the key categories of governance practices that must be addressed, how these divergent practices challenge end-users, and how the establishment of criteria that define effective and efficient reporting is a critical first step for the FSB and its Climate Disclosure Task Force.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Natural Resources, Governance, G20, Regulation, and Financial Markets
Political Geography:
Global Focus