IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wii/rpaper/rr451.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wanted! Free Trade Agreements in the Service of Environmental and Climate Protection

Author

Listed:
  • Julia Grübler
  • Roman Stöllinger

    (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw)

  • Gabriele Tondl

Abstract

The effects of international trade on the planet’s climate and environment are manifold and complex. This makes assessment of the impact of free trade agreements (FTAs) a delicate matter. This study provides an overview of the development of sustainability chapters in FTAs and discusses their potential and limitations. It highlights particular industry-specific environmental issues related to EU trade, especially with developing countries, and presents complementary policy options. In this vein, it zooms in on the EU-Mercosur FTA, for which a political agreement was reached in June 2019. It contrasts the estimated cost of increased CO2 emissions attributable to intensified trade relations, as one element of the ‘pains from trade’, with the estimated ‘gains from trade’ arising from lower prices for consumers. The analysis suggests that the benefits outweigh the costs; yet, the result is sensitive to assumed prices for pollutants. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the incorporated sustainability chapter is limited by its enforceability. The latter provokes a discussion on the modernisation of the framework of the World Trade Organization, which currently does not allow environmental challenges to be tackled effectively.

Suggested Citation

  • Julia Grübler & Roman Stöllinger & Gabriele Tondl, 2021. "Wanted! Free Trade Agreements in the Service of Environmental and Climate Protection," wiiw Research Reports 451, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    • Handle: RePEc:wii:rpaper:rr:451
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://wiiw.ac.at/wanted-free-trade-agreements-in-the-service-of-environmental-and-climate-protection-dlp-5589.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wilson,John S. & Tsunehiro Otsuki & Sewadeh, Mirvat, 2002. "Dirty exports and environmental regulation : do standards matter to trade?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2806, The World Bank.
    2. Timmer, Marcel P. & Los, Bart & Stehrer, Robert & de Vries, Gaaitzen J., 2016. "An Anatomy of the Global Trade Slowdown based on the WIOD 2016 Release," GGDC Research Memorandum GD-162, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.
    3. Kirsten S. Wiebe & Norihiko Yamano, 2016. "Estimating CO2 Emissions Embodied in Final Demand and Trade Using the OECD ICIO 2015: Methodology and Results," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2016/5, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Viktoras Kulionis, 2018. "Constructing energy accounts for WIOD 2016 release," Papers 1810.07112, arXiv.org.
    2. Aleksandra Parteka & Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz, 2020. "Wage response to global production links: evidence for workers from 28 European countries (2005–2014)," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 156(4), pages 769-801, November.
    3. Evgeny N. SMIRNOV & Sergey A. LUKYANOV, 2019. "Assessment of the transforming impact of global value chains on international trade," Upravlenets, Ural State University of Economics, vol. 10(3), pages 36-46, July.
    4. Zhou, Yixiao & Tyers, Rod, 2019. "Automation and inequality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    5. Ana Maria Santacreu & Michael Sposi & Jing Zhang, 2021. "What Determines State Heterogeneity in Response to US Tariff Changes?," Working Papers 2021-007, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised 08 Mar 2023.
    6. Martínez Mora, Carmen & Merino De Lucas, Fernando, 2017. "La estrategia de retorno de la industria española: El caso del sector calzado en Alicante, su importancia y determinantes/Reshoring the Spanish Production of Footwear: Its Importance and Determinants," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 35, pages 777-800, Agosto.
    7. Dagmara Nikulin & Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz & Aleksandra Parteka, 2022. "Working Conditions in Global Value Chains: Evidence for European Employees," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(4), pages 701-721, August.
    8. Fernández-Amador, Octavio & Francois, Joseph F. & Oberdabernig, Doris A. & Tomberger, Patrick, 2023. "Energy footprints and the international trade network: A new dataset. Is the European Union doing it better?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    9. Bartesaghi, Paolo & Clemente, Gian Paolo & Grassi, Rosanna & Luu, Duc Thi, 2022. "The multilayer architecture of the global input-output network and its properties," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 304-341.
    10. Suma Athreye & Lucia Piscitello & Kenneth C. Shadlen, 2020. "Twenty-five years since TRIPS: Patent policy and international business," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 3(4), pages 315-328, December.
    11. Anderson, James E. & Yotov, Yoto V., 2020. "Short run gravity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    12. Robert Vermeulen & Edo Schets & Melanie Lohuis & Barbara Kolbl & David-Jan Jansen & Willem Heeringa, 2018. "An energy transition risk stress test for the financial system of the Netherlands," DNB Occasional Studies 1607, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    13. Dachs, Bernhard & Kinkel, Steffen & Jäger, Angela, 2019. "Bringing it all back home? Backshoring of manufacturing activities and the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 1-1.
    14. Cappariello, Rita & Franco-Bedoya, Sebastian & Gunnella, Vanessa & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I. P., 2020. "Rising protectionism and global value chains: quantifying the general equilibrium effects," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108423, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Mehmet Balcilar & Ojonugwa Usman & George N. Ike, 2023. "Investing green for sustainable development without ditching economic growth," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(2), pages 728-743, April.
    16. Sabina Szymczak, 2018. "Production fragmentation and employment. Country-industry level analysis based on WIOD 2016," Collegium of Economic Analysis Annals, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis, issue 53, pages 131-146.
    17. Martínez-Martín, Jaime & Rusticelli, Elena, 2021. "Keeping track of global trade in real time," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 224-236.
    18. Luis Daniel Torres-Gonzalez & Jacobo Ferrer-Hernandez & Adrian Martınez, 2022. "On the Long-Run Neutrality of Profits-Wages Ratios in the Determination of International Relative Prices Under Absolute Advantages," Working Papers 2208, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    19. Raphael Auer & Bruce Muneaki Iwadate & Andreas Schrimpf & Alexander F. Wagner, 2022. "Global production linkages and stock market co-movement," BIS Working Papers 1003, Bank for International Settlements.
    20. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6m5kss847r91no96hiublu6anu is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Xuezhou Wen & Daniel Quacoe & Dinah Quacoe & Kingsley Appiah & Bertha Ada Danso, 2019. "Analysis on Bioeconomy’s Contribution to GDP: Evidence from Japan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-17, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    free trade agreements; trade policy; environment; sustainability; WTO; Mercosur;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F18 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Environment
    • F64 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Environment
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wii:rpaper:rr:451. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Customer service (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wiiwwat.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.