Kuik O ,
Faure M ,
Grimeaud D ,
Kremers H ,
Lubbers R ,
Nijkamp P ,
Koorevaar J ,
Verbruggen H ,
Wang W
280 p
in Dutch
2001
Toon Nederlands
English Abstract This report examines the potential impacts of
international climate change agreements on international trade and trade
flows, and on the options, or lack of options, to take legal action, for
example within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO), to
mitigate unwanted side-effects of such international agreements. In
particular, the study addresses the following three questions: 1) What are
the impacts of existing and potential climate change agreements on the
external trade positions of participating countries, non-participating
countries and energy-exporting countries? 2) How do specific economic
instruments of climate change policy (joint implementation, tradable
emission permits, or charges) affect international trade and how do they
relate to the Kyoto protocol? 3) Which trade measures (trade restricting or
trade enhancing) could be implemented in relation to international climate
change agreements to mitigate or compensate for unwanted side-effects? By
providing an overview of the legal and policy aspects of the climate change
regime, this report seeks to shed an analytical light on the key issues that
international negotiators are to address. Legal aspects between climate
change policies and trade policies are examined in the context of three
scenarios, "full ratification", "partial ratification", and
non-ratification, but national measures". Each of these scenarios gives
rise to potential trade conflicts. The report examines Computable General
Equilibrium (CGE) models that are used for the economic evaluation of
climate change policies and uses one such model -the Global Trade Analysis
Project (GTAP) "E" model for its own analysis. The report assesses
consequences of different policy scenarios for international trade, economic
welfare and for the global environment. It also looks at specific industry
impacts and discusses ways to mitigate unwanted
side-effects.
