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5 CCLR 466 (2011)
Emissions Offshoring: Repercussions for International Trade

handle is hein.journals/cclr2011 and id is 482 raw text is: 466 Emissions Offshoring: Repercussions for International Trade CCLR 4~2011 Emissions Offshoring: Repercussions for International Trade Doaa Abdel Motaal* Every once in while, in any debate, new evidence emerges to challenge our thinking. And if the evidence is overwhelming, it can even provoke a turning point in the debate. This is the point that the debate on trade and climate change has reached with the new evidence that Hertwhich, Peters, Caldeira and Davis have put on the table on emissions consumed. Looking at the world through an emissions consumption prism instead of the Kyoto Protocol's prism of 'emissions production, they discover that the developed world has actually increased its emissions in the past couple of decades instead of reducing them. Their work demonstrates that the reductions called for by the Kyoto Protocol have found themselves negated by the emissions that the developed world has imported from other corners of the globe. In other words, that the world may have engaged in no more than a process of emissions offshoring. This article seeks to bring this evidence to the attention of trade negotiators, and to contextualize these findings in the realm of the on-going trade and climate change debate. It reaches the conclusion that high level dialogue between trade, environment and climate change ministers is urgent since the integration of international trade into unilateral climate mitigation action is likely to become reality. I. A Climate Trade War? In the corridors of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), many governments have expressed the fear that border measures of various sorts, such as the imposition carbon tariffs on imported products, would be used to combat climate change. The use of DoaaAbdel Motaal is Counsellor in the Office of the Director- General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Geneva, Switzerland. This article is written in the author's personal capacity and does not reflect the views of the WTO or of its members. 1 See the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (other- wise known as the Waxman-Markey bill), H.R. 2454, 7 July 2009, available on the Internet at <http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/ cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=l 1 1cong-bills&docid=f:h2454pcs. txt.pdf> (last accessed on 26 January 2012). See also Directive 2009/29/FC of the Furopean Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 amending Directive 2003/87/EC so as to improve and extend the greenhouse gas emission allowance trading scheme of the Community, OJ L 140/63, available on the Internet at <http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L: 2009:140:0063:0087:en:PDF> (last accessed on 26 January 2012). such measures had been touted by the both the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) on several occasions in the past.1 Their logic has been that if the international negotiations on a post-Kyoto Protocol regime do not make any head- way and the EU and the US take the lead in fighting climate change, then they would have to ensure that their efforts are not negated by the increased emissions of others (carbon leakage), and that For literature on the compatibility of border adjustment measures with WTO rules, see Patrick Low, Gabrielle Marceau, and Julia Reinaud, The Interface between Trade and Climate Change Regimes, Scoping the Issues (WTO Staff Working Paper ERSD 2011-1, Geneva: WTO, 2011); Peter Wooders, Aaron Cosbey, and John Stephenson, Border Carbon Adjustment and Free Allowances: Responding to Competitiveness and Leakage Con- cerns, Round Table on Sustainable Development, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Doc. SG/SD/RT(2009)8, 23 July 2009; and Gary Hufbauer and Jisun Kim, The WTO and Climate Change, Challenges and Options (Working Paper Series 09-9, Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2009), available on the Internet at <http://www.piie.com/publications/wp/wp09-9.pdf> (last accessed on 26 January 2012). 466 Emissions Offshoring Repercussions for International Trade CCLR 412011

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