Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TradePoliciesClimate (On Trade Policies and Climate Change)
Reporting period: 2021-07-01 to 2023-06-30
During the last decades temperatures have raised by about 1.5 Degree Celsius and the with marked differences across geographical areas. The changes in climate conditions have severe effects on anthropogenic activities and sectors, such as agriculture, tourism, service. Many effects are still ignored or not well understood. This is even truer for complex phenomena depending on the human interactions, such as trade exchanges. More precisely, there is very little comprehension on the consequences that climate change is having on international relationships and regulatory regimes. This is extremely important for the society insofar the effects of the climate change may revolutionize countries’ interconnectedness and reshape the globalization. The overall objectives of TradePoliciesClimate were to analyse the impacts of climate change on trade and its normative framework.
TradePoliciesClimate has allowed to derive clear and important results. First, the project has shown that climate change alters export capacities and trade incentives. In other terms, the changes in climate interfere with the capability of the exporting countries to provide goods for international markets. As the project has shown, this implies that the evolution of the climate conditions will induce a reshape in trade flows, diverting the existing one and creating new routes.
Second, TradePoliciesClimate has clearly shown that the trade regulations that have been implemented for the protection of the environment have impacted trade flows. More precisely, the project demonstrates that those measures have shrunk trade relationships. This is very true for countries that have not implemented technical measures for the protection of the environment. These findings have important geopolitical implications, insofar while there is a wide consensus on the necessity to protect the global environment and to limit global warming, the costs associated with trade measures are clearly unevenly distributed.
Second, TradePoliciesClimate has clearly shown that the trade regulations that have been implemented for the protection of the environment have impacted trade flows. More precisely, the project demonstrates that those measures have shrunk trade relationships. This is very true for countries that have not implemented technical measures for the protection of the environment. These findings have important geopolitical implications, insofar while there is a wide consensus on the necessity to protect the global environment and to limit global warming, the costs associated with trade measures are clearly unevenly distributed.
The project has significantly advanced the state of the art. Before the completion of TradePoliciesClimate the literature fell short of evidence on the relationships between the change in climate conditions and countries’ export capacity. As already discussed, the implications of TradePoliciesClimate are wide for the society. The project suggests a clear direction for future analyses that should be devoted to understanding how the evolving climate will reshape trade and, as a consequence, will alter the physical availability and the economic accessibility of traded goods. The project has initiated a new strand of research.