WTI-ICTSD Trade Policy Dialogues: Creating Convergence - A “Trade and Climate Code” and other Ideas


A Brownbag Lunch Discussion featuring Gary Hufbauer

27th September 2009 • Co-organised with World Trade Institute (WTI)

The International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and the World Trade Institute are pleased to organize a Brownbag Discussion featuring Gary Hufbauer, entitled “WTI-ICTSD Trade Policy Dialogues: Creating Convergence - A “Trade and Climate Code” and other Ideas”.  The lead speaker will be Gary Hufbauer, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington D.C. who together with Steve Charnovitz and Jusun Kim advanced the idea of a “Trade and Climate Code” in their recent book.

This third event in the WTI-ICTSD Trade Policy Dialogues series will take place this coming Monday, 28 September 2009, 12:00-14:00 hrs, at the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, Salle C.

A sandwich lunch will be provided.

Background:

As climate change policy-making shifts into high gear ahead of the end-of-year Copenhagen Summit, the need increases to better manage and perhaps remodel the interface between trade, sustainable development and climate change policies and agreements. Many observers have already advanced creative interpretations to delineate space within general WTO disciplines for legitimate climate-related measures that impact on trade and sustainable development. Several voices have challenged the primacy or relevance of trade disciplines in the first place. There is a need for new and improved tools to organize convergence (and manage likely divergences) at the trade-climate change interface, and to explore the scope for – and consequences of – changing current trade disciplines and the assumptions that underlie them. The aim must be to search for feasible, legally sound solutions that offer a solid basis for effective climate change policies to coexist and converge with the principles, rationales and structures of sustainable development and the world trading system in the 21st century.

A controversial proposal in this regard is that of a “Trade and Climate Code” advanced by Gary Hufbauer, Steve Charnovitz and Jusun Kim in their recent book Global Warming and the World Trading System. Gary C. Hufbauer, of the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, will introduce his ideas. Hannes Schloemann, WTI Advisors, Geneva, and Johannes Bernabe, ICTSD, Geneva, will comment as discussants.

Photos from the Dialogue: