Fostering low carbon growth: the case for a sustainable energy trade agreement

This paper highlights the role of trade in contributing to massively scaling up and deploying renewable energy, a crucial step in supporting a shift away from fossil fuel so as to ensure energy security and to address climate change. It identifies a number of barriers to trade in sustainable energy goods and services (SEGS), while pointing to a significant governance gap in a number of key issue areas in the trade and sustainable energy interface. The authors argue that this can best be addressed by negotiating a trade agreement on sustainable energy. Such an agreement could initially take the form of a plurilateral agreement including a critical mass of major economies and emitters, either within or outside of the WTO.