Trade and Climate Change
Triggers or Barriers for Climate-Friendly Technology Transfer and Development?
In their policy paper for the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation’s Dialogue on Globalization section, Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf and Christiane Gerstetter of Ecologic Legal, shed light at the most important aspects of the relationship between trade and climate change policies. They investigate which trade-related policies should be adopted to combat climate change and review the compatibility of those measures with the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Particular attention is given to issues that are of relevance to developing countries. The first focus of the paper is on the transfer of climate-friendly technologies to developing countries.Read more
Although climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time, the time scale for climate change targets at the international, European, and national level has, until now, been confined to 2020. Great Britain, the first country to go beyond this time scale, passed a climate protection law at the end of 2008 with climate protection goals going until 2050, entailing government reporting obligations and an independent advisory committee. On behalf of WWF Germany, Ecologic Institute researched how middle and long term climate change goals could best be anchored in German law.
The Ecologic Institute analyzes the pertinence of using elements of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in shaping international environmental governance reform. Christiane Gerstetter, Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf and Susanah Stoessel, the authors of the study, conclude that the WIPO model is illustrative for the debate on reforming international environmental governance. At the same time, however, important disparities in the substance and policies of intellectual property and environmental protection exist. The Ecologic study is available for download.
