ICTSD Global Platform on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainable Energy

For further information about the Global Platform, please see the Brochure [pdf 1mb].

The fourth assessment report by the IPCC, the Stern Review of the economics of climate change, the Bali Action Plan and multiple authoritative studies have all highlighted the critical role that economic instruments, markets, and regulatory tools will play in efforts to address climate change. Addressing climate change requires no less than a fundamental transformation in the way in which energy is sourced and used today – a redefinition of what we produce, trade and consume. In a globalized, interdependent world, such an enterprise requires bold and innovative policies and the enabling regulatory frameworks to support them.

Indeed, the concern for both climate and trade policy, is how to steer a global and local transition of such magnitude, without compromising development and growth prospects; and in the way, how to manage impacts on competitiveness in an equitable manner. This would require a range of deliberate policies and conducive international institutions to ensure that social primary goods are generated and that natural resource use is conducted in ways that don’t compromise their renewal and ensure the integrity of natural energy and biological functions.

ICTSD’s Global Platform on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainable Energy (Global Platform) focuses on the linkages between climate change, sustainable energy, and trade policy. It mobilizes the technical and political expertise to address these interlocking issues to foster strong multilateral regimes on trade and climate change that effectively promote a transition to a low-carbon economy and a sustainable energy future.

Through research and analysis and policy dialogues, the Global Platform advances the analytical capacity of stakeholders, supports their interaction with policy makers, and builds effective cross-disciplinary understanding so that solutions can be built and agreed by the international community in the climate change and trade policy processes. Through these actions, it aims at creating policy coherence.

Activities undertaken under the Global Platform are clustered around seven key areas:

• generative dialogue between trade policy and climate change communities;
• enabling a scale up of innovation, diffusion, and technology transfer through trade policy;
• accelerating trade of climate-friendly goods and services;
• ensuring incorporation of agriculture and biofuels in sustainable strategies;
• defining policy tools and mechanisms to make adaptation possible;
• addressing carbon leakage and competitiveness through equitable policies; and
• dealing with de-carbonization of transportation and bunker fuels.

For more information on ICTSD’s Global Platform on Climate Change, please click here.

For a full overview of the Global Platform's research click here and for it's past activities click here.