Climate and Trade

The use of trade policy instruments such as customs duties as accompanying measures for climate policies has been the subject of comments and criticism since the EU and then the United States officially began to examine their possibilities. 

IDDRI has also conducted specific research on the economic, environmental and political benefits of establishing export taxes in China from the perspective of post-2012 negotiations. This thematic area, which IDDRI will pursue from 2009 to 2011 in the form of a thesis financed by a CIFRE grant, is part of the Climate Strategies research project entitled “Tackling Leakages”.

The conditions for change

The two global challenges facing not only rich countries but also emerging and low-income countries are, according to Sir Nicholas Stern, climate change and poverty reduction (or improving the lot of the “bottom billion”). Meeting this dual challenge implies very rapidly diverting the development paths of each of these groups of countries. Difficulties in coordinating climate policies and development assistance policies show that the production of scientific knowledge and the establishment of a multilateral negotiation framework are not sufficient conditions for meeting these challenges.

Identifying the political, social, ideological and cognitive obstacles to the trajectory changes required by sustainable growth in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and poverty is a precondition for recommending and establishing sustainable policies. Studying the conditions for change is therefore the subject of a multi-disciplinary research project coordinated by IDDRI, bringing together LSE,the Free University of Berlin (FUB) and Sciences Po, and financed by the European Commission. Set up in 2008, this project will run from 2009 to 2011. Some of its empirical material will be provided by the original substance of the post-2012 negotiation – experienced in vivo – and the reform of official development assistance as observed in Germany, the United Kingdom and France.