The Green Agenda in Global Trade: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Abstract

The environmental agenda in world trade has two main dimensions: the expansion of environmental requirements for goods and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental requirements, due to their admissibility by WTO rules, provide countries with an opportunity to support national producers and protect against goods produced “incorrectly” in terms of environmental or even social standards. The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, which, although regulated at the global level by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, is largely voluntary, “multi-speed” in nature, as it faces a fundamental contradiction the right of lagging states to develop in accordance with their national goals. The whole complex of these contradictions is a serious problem, but it also brings opportunities for those who know how to play in this field, including Russia, as an important participant in international trade focused on sustainable development.