At the Davos forum of January 2014, a group of 14 countries pledged to launch negotiations on liberalising trade in ‘green goods’ (also known as`environmental goods’(EGs)), focussing on the elimination of tariffs for an ‘APEC list’ of 54 products. The paper shows that the ‘Davos...

This paper examines the vulnerability of African countries to climate change, for which they are not responsible. It is based on an index of structural or physical vulnerability to climate change at the country level, denominated below by the acronym PVCCI. This index has been created recently...

The outcome of the 15th conference of the Parties to the UNFCC showed a shift from a top-down approach with a collective target favoring environmental objectives to a bottom-up accord favoring political feasibility, with no meaningful binding agreement in sight, as the global climate regime and...

The outcome of the 15th conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Copenhagen showed a shift from a top-down approach with a collective target favoring environmental objectives to a bottom-up accord favoring political feasibility. There is no meaningful binding agreement in sight, also because...

The paper surveys the state of knowledge about the trade-related environmental consequences of a country’s development strategy along three channels: (i) direct trade-environment linkages (overexploitation of natural resources and trade-related transport costs);(ii) ’virtual trade’ in...

The outcome of the 15th conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Copenhagen showed a shift from a top-down approach with a collective target favoring environmental objectives to a bottom-up accord favoring political feasibility. There is no meaningful binding agreement in sight, also because...

This paper asks two questions concerning Border Tax Adjustments for climate purposes, when viewed from a trade perspective: First, under what conditions are BTAs possible in the WTO-world? To address this issue, the paper provides a detailed discussion of the relevant law and case law. We also...

The pollution terms of trade (PTT) index first introduced and estimated by Antweiler (1996) allows to identify if trade-embodied emissions are on average larger in exports than in imports. His empirical results were based on the tradecomposition (between-sector) part of the PTT and revealed...

The pollution terms of trade (PTT) index first introduced and estimated by Antweiler (1996) allows to identify if trade-embodied emissions are on average larger in exports than in imports. His empirical results were based on the tradecomposition (between-sector) part of the PTT and revealed...

The paper argues first that the climate, trade and water communities should leave aside their prejudices, and it provides clear evidence that the three communities confront the same vested interests when trying to solve their common problem of free riding. Then, it argues that such strong...