The following color-coded campus status levels have been developed to simplify communication regarding the current circumstances on and around the Morningside campus. The campus status level is based upon the potential disruption to our academic mission and/or campus operations. The status level will be adjusted up or down to reflect then-current circumstances, including information received from law enforcement and other sources regarding potential events that could affect Columbia. Continued adherence to university rules and policies remains fundamental to maintaining an open campus. Read more.
Explore Our Work
Our work is committed to independent and nonpartisan research that meets the high standards of academic integrity and quality at Columbia University.
The Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP) at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), in partnership with Columbia SIPA’s Institute of Global Politics (IGP), today announced the launch of a new Trade and Clean Energy Transition Program.
Announcement• July 10, 2024
Energy Explained
Get the latest as our experts share their insights on global energy policy.
The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI), especially Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-3 and Gemini on which the now well-known ChatGPT AI and Gemina assistant systems...
Energy is central to economic development, and access to energy is intrinsically linked to prosperity. As standards of living improve, energy use could double by the end of...
We are the premier hub and policy institution for global energy thought leadership. Energy impacts every element of our lives, and our trusted fact-based research informs the decisions that affect all of us.
Recent climate progress arguably owes more to industrial competition than to the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) climate summit. The US has spent more than $200 billion on the manufacture and deployment of clean energy technologies, a step-change increase from only one year ago.[1] The IRA is expected to mobilize more than a trillion dollars in government spending and trillions more in private investment to fight climate change.[2] The legislation also prompted a wide swath of countries to increase clean energy spending as they vie for investment and industries of the future. The EU, for its part, began to enforce its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) this past October.[3] A motley crew comprised of the US and the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) have pushed back, but the EU CBAM has likewise spurred governments to strengthen their stances against carbon emissions by considering strong carbon pricing or improving their capacity to measure embedded carbon. It seems tariffs and subsidies—rather than diplomacy—are in the driver’s seat when it comes to upping global pressure to reduce emissions.
Against this backdrop, trade will inevitably hang over COP28, though it will not feature in official negotiations. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), this year’s host, has acknowledged the urgency of this issue by including, for the first time ever, trade as one of its themed days, and representatives from the World Trade Organization (WTO) will be in attendance at the conference. The WTO is unlikely to depart Dubai empty-handed, so observers may expect an announcement from the organization aimed at reducing tensions around CBAMs—perhaps around aligning accounting methodologies.
While expectations for the outcomes of climate and trade discussions in Dubai remain low due to the issue’s newcomer status at global climate talks, here the authors discuss areas where some progress could be made.
A Climate Club for Trade
COP28 could kick off weightier climate-trade work. Last year, the G7 under Germany’s presidency stated its intention to form a so-called climate club, a group of countries between which trade barriers are lowered in recognition of mutual progress on climate.[4] After incubating with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), the climate club will formally launch in Dubai on December 1.[5] If successful, it could become the focal point for international cooperation on climate, trade, and development issues. As one of the authors has suggested,[6] the goal of a climate club would be to advance consensus across a wide range of climate, trade, and development policies.
What Success Could Look Like
A successful COP28 could launch a club to tackle the following topics:
Aligning on allowable subsidies. The US and other developed countries could agree to limit domestic sourcing provisions for green subsidies to clean technologies that require public support to commercialize. They could also pledge concessional financing and technology assistance to developing countries in the same sectors that they support internally with green subsidies. In turn, developing countries could pledge not to limit imports of clean energy. All parties would have to agree to refrain from pursuing cases at the WTO against one another.
Harmonizing approaches to border carbon adjustment. Creating consensus around carbon accounting, though seemingly arcane, carries geopolitical importance. Uncoordinated approaches could lead to different prices for the same products, compelling countries to tussle over tariffs. The EU and other CBAM countries could also incentivize developing countries to crack down on carbon leakage by offering concessional financing to help them comply and lower emissions. Such a measure would help the EU CBAM, in particular, avoid regressive impacts on poorer countries and provide global benefit, since most emissions come from the developing world.
Coordinating sustainable supply chains. Developed countries can pledge to help developing countries move up the value chain in emerging clean energy technology supply chains by catalyzing investment in mineral refining[7] as well as battery component and solar cell manufacturing. Such investments would abrogate the need for export controls on raw materials, which would fragment markets and create more green trade friction.
Advancing WTO reform. While some believe that the WTO is ill-equipped to balance the climate benefits of green industrial policies with their potentially negative consequences on global trade,[8] there is no substitute for the WTO’s centrality in global trade. The climate club could provide much-needed stimulus to restart talks around WTO reform. The conversation could start with more limited changes to existing agreements like General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Articles XX and XXI, which deal with exceptions to the trade rules. Discussions would have to recognize the need to balance public subsidies to jumpstart green industries—which may not emerge without government support—with the goal of agreeing to lower tariffs on environmental goods to make the energy transition more affordable globally.
COP28 Will Set the Tone
It remains unclear how the intersection of climate and trade will feature in COP28’s formal negotiations as well as official agenda and, when it does, discussions may hold more peril than promise. But success on any of these fronts—likely requiring months, if not years, of negotiations—would decrease trade risks and increase climate opportunity. The G7 would need to welcome emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) into the fold to achieve meaningful outcomes. Lowering tariffs on environmental goods, transferring technologies that the IRA makes affordable, and redistributing CBAM revenues to industrial decarbonization efforts in EMDEs could all help accelerate the energy transition in the Global South without encouraging trade fragmentation. For all of this, COP28 could be the starting point.
Following a landslide win, the Labour Party under the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer has returned to power in the United Kingdom after fourteen years. While much of...
Following recent European Parliamentary elections, the next five years for European energy and climate policies are going to have a different political framework than the previous 5-year period....
As of last month, 61 countries have published a national hydrogen strategy.[i] Continuing from the authors’ previous blog on what these strategies tell us about hydrogen trade, this...
Three CGEP scholars weigh in on the Biden Administration’s recent decision to increase tariffs on imports from China in strategic sectors vital to US economic interests and national...
Millions of US households struggle to meet their energy needs due to low wages, rising living costs, and other historical and structural drivers of poverty.