Gallagher Publishes Paper Stemming from Pardee Center Workshop on Trade and Climate Policy

Prof. Kevin Gallagher, Director of the Global Development Policy Center and a Faculty Research Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, recently co-authored an article exploring the need to integrate climate change considerations into economic policy, specifically international trade agreements. The article, titled “Assessing the Climate Impacts of U.S. Trade Agreements,” was published in the University of Michigan’s legal journal The Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law (MJEAL).

The article stems from an international experts’ workshop convened by Prof. Gallagher at the Pardee Center in April 2016, during which the participants examined the extent to which trade and investment treaties can be opportunities to achieve the ambitious climate change goals of the Paris Agreement. The findings of the workshop were synthesized in a Pardee Center Task Force Report, titled “Trade in the Balance: Reconciling Trade and Climate Policy,” in November 2016. The report stated that trade and investment treaties can be tools to advance global climate and development goals, but that the model rules for those treaties need to be redesigned to reward climate-friendly modes of economic activity, curb activity that worsens climate change, and provide the proper policy space so that nation states can adequately address the climate challenge.

In the newly published MJEAL journal article, the authors specifically explore how the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) can assess and mitigate potential climate change impacts during the required environmental review process for proposed trade agreements.

Click here for more information about Prof. Gallagher’s Pardee Center Task Force on Trade, Investment, and Climate Policy.