NOV. 18, 2021 — CLIMATE CHANGE PROVISIONS — from document — ongoing research — published by WTO.

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) are sometimes viewed as a “laboratory” in which new types of provisions are designed to address new issues and challenges.

This is the case of provisions addressing explicitly climate change.

An increasing number of RTAs, namely 64 agreements (18% of notified RTAs) include at least one provision referring explicitly to climate change, global warming, greenhouse gases reduction or low emission economy (see chart below)

Compared to other environmental topics, such as biodiversity or sustainable fishery or forestry management, specific provisions on climate change are relatively fewer and less detailed.

Provisions on climate change in RTAs are particularly heterogeneous across agreements, with some types of provisions only found in a single or couple of RTAs.