Paragraph 31 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration mandates to the liberalization of environmental goods and services. This mandate offers a good opportunity to put climate-friendly goods and services on a fast track to liberalization. Agreement on this paragraph should represent one immediate...

To date, border adjustment measures in the form of emissions allowance requirements (EAR) under the U.S. proposed cap-and-trade regime are the most concrete unilateral trade measure put forward to level the carbon playing field. If improperly implemented, such measures could disturb the world...

With countries from around the world set to meet in Copenhagen to try to hammer out a post-2012 climate change agreement, no one would disagree that a U.S. commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions is essential to such a global pact. However, despite U.S. president Obama’s recent announcement...

There is growing clamor in industrial countries for additional border taxes on imports from countries with lower carbon prices. A key factor affecting the impact of these taxes is whether they are based on the carbon content of imports or the carbon content in domestic production. Our...

Copenhagen Consensus Center organized an initiative, in which an Expert Panel of outstanding economists convened in Washington DC in September 2009 to compile a prioritized list of specific solutions in the fight against Climate Change. The basis for the discussions and the ranking were...

To date, border adjustment measures in the form of emissions allowance requirements (EAR) under the U.S. proposed cap-and-trade regime are the most concrete unilateral trade measure put forward on the table to level the carbon playing field. If improperly implemented, such measures could disturb...

The climate-trade nexus gains increasing attention as governments are taking great efforts to forge a post-2012 climate change regime to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. This raises the issues of the scope of trade-related measures and of when and how they could be used. This paper discusses how far...

The paper considers a situation where two countries - the North and the South - use a non-traded polluting input to produce the goods for final consumption. The North is more efficient in both, production and abatement processes. The study compares the effects of the transfer of abatement...

Financing a proper response to climate change after Kyoto will require another look at both burden sharing and funding mechanisms. After describing the risks of cap-and-trade with carbon offsets and the advantages of a harmonized carbon tax, a method is proposed to utilize a globally harmonized...

A two-tier climate club exploits the comparative advantage of large countries to mete out punishments through trade, while taking their capacity to resist punishment as a constraint. Countries outside the coalition price carbon at a fixed fraction of the average carbon price adopted within the...