Category Archives: trade

Let the WTO Referee Carbon Border Tariffs

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December 2, 2022 — The most important task in confronting global climate change is the need to enforce serious quantitative limits on Greenhouse Gas emissions, such as the Nationally Defined Contributions which were originally negotiated in the 2015 Paris Agreement.  The 27th Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC,  which concluded in Sharm-el-Sheikh November 20, did not tackle this task.  Carbon border equalization measures, including tariffs against carbon-intensive imports from lax countries, might supply the teeth that have been missing from such agreements.  But they also risk advancing protectionism, which would ultimately slow the needed global energy transition.  Adjudicating the fairness of carbon tariffs would be a good job for a reinvigorated WTO. read more

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A Resilience Case for International Trade

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July 3, 2022Some new problems have afflicted the economy in the last year.  Two examples come from the US:  blockages in supply chain logistics and a critical shortage in infant milk formula. One problem applies to the EU even more than to the US: energy scarcity due to sanctions against Russian fossil fuel exports.  And one applies almost everywhere: inflation.

Some have associated these four problems with what is said to be excessive dependence on international trade, that is, with globalization.  Consequently, deglobalization, fragmentation, reshoring, friend-shoring, decoupling, and resilience have become popular buzzwords.  The feeling is that individual countries would not have been so exposed to shocks if they had been more self-sufficient. read more

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Energy Policies Can Be Both Geopolitical & Green

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April 29, 2022 — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has amplified the importance of national security objectives when Western nations formulate energy policy.  At the same time, they should not take their eye off the ball of reducing environmental damage and, in particular, slowing down greenhouse gas emissions.  Both goals, geopolitical and environmental, are urgent.  The national security and environmental objective should be evaluated together, rather than via separate “stove pipes.”

Some talk as if the two goals are necessarily in conflict — because, for example, fighting back against Moscow by boosting domestic US oil production would contribute to air pollution and global climate change.  But there are plenty of steps that would benefit the environment and simultaneously further the geopolitical objective.  The most obvious steps, especially for the EU, are sanctions that cut demand for imports of fossil fuels from Russia. read more

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