Climate and trade: why climate change calls for fundamental reforms in world trade policies

  • 01/10/2009

  • German NGO Forum Environment & Development

This study demonstrates that the imminent danger of climate change necessitates fundamental reforms in world trade regulation. The decades old aim of liberalising trade between countries and creating a free world market runs counter to climate protection. What used to be controversially debated has now been empirically proven: the expansion of markets and trade relations fuels climate change. Transnational product chains, which fan out the production of one product to a dozen or more locations across the world, may lower business costs