In response to concerns voiced over the trade and competitiveness impact of a range of measures governments might employ in pursuit of the ‘green economy’, this analysis finds the majority domestically focused, with no significant impact on imports or exports, some with potentially positive...

This address to UNCTAD's 49th Trade and Development Board explores what Rio 20 failed to do: move us toward international consensus on what is appropriate state behavior in the pursuit of a green economy. We have a panoply of unilateral measures employed to capture both environmental and...

The EU is considering implementing a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. To inform the policy decision, we assess eight energy-intensive trade-exposed sectors in depth to distill what their characteristics imply for the shape of an ideal mechanism. The results highlight the difficulty of finding...

This brief aims to highlight some of the difficulties involved in elaborating a working border carbon adjustment (BCA) regime. It demonstrates both the tensions between the various possible BCA objectives and the necessarily imperfect options that are available for bridging the tension between...