Reconciling Climate Change and Trade Policy

Mattoo, Aaditya ; Subramanian, Arvind ; van der Mensbrugghe, Dominique ; He, Jianwu

关键词: AGGREGATE DEMAND;    AGGREGATE EMISSIONS;    ALLOCATION;    ALLOWANCE;    ALLOWANCE PROVISION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5123
RP-ID  :  WPS5123

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

There is growing clamor in industrialcountries for additional border taxes on imports fromcountries with lower carbon prices. The authors confirm thefindings of other research that unilateral emissions cuts byindustrial countries will have minimal carbon leakageeffects. However, output and exports of energy-intensivemanufactures are projected to decline potentially creatingpressure for trade action. A key factor affecting the impactof any border taxes is whether they are based on the carboncontent of imports or the carbon content in domesticproduction. Their quantitative estimates suggest that theformer action when applied to all merchandise imports wouldaddress competitiveness and environmental concerns in highincome countries but with serious consequences for tradingpartners. For example, China s manufacturing exports woulddecline by one-fifth and those of all low and middle incomecountries by 8 per cent; the corresponding declines in realincome would be 3.7 per cent and 2.4 per cent. Border taxadjustment based on the carbon content in domesticproduction, especially if applied to both imports andexports, would broadly address the competitiveness concernsof producers in high income countries and less seriouslydamage developing country trade.