Tag: International Trade and Environment

New Publication: Kick-starting diffusion – Explaining the varying frequency of PTAs’ environmental clauses by their initial conditions

why certain environmental provisions diffuse more often than others?

Most recent preferential trade agreements (PTAs) include environmental provisions, as documented on TRENDanalytics. Often trade negotiators do not reinvent the wheel and copy environmental provisions that have been included in earlier PTAs. For example, while the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, signed in 2018, entails a record number of environmental provisions, only two […]

EU trade policy and the Paris Climate Agreement

EU trade policy and the Paris Climate Agreement © MPD01605 via Flickr / CC BY-SA

Recently, the European Union (EU) announced that all its future preferential trade agreements (PTAs) need to include a reference to the ratification and implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement, starting with the trade agreement concluded last year between the EU and Japan. Indeed, the EU-Japan Economic Partnership includes a reaffirmation of the commitment to implement […]

Trade and climate: The unexplored contribution of trade agreements to climate governance

  Multilateral negotiations on climate change are slow and often disappointing. Accordingly, policy and scholarly attention has been diverted towards climate-policy developments elsewhere. Many have explored the progress made by regional governments, city networks, and transnational partnerships in tackling climate change. Yet, the potential contribution of trade agreements to climate governance remains underexplored.