European Commission, EU Member States and 26 partner countries will launch a “Coalition of Trade Ministers for Climate”, the first global ministerial-level forum dedicated to trade, climate and sustainable development issues.

The Coalition will encourage global action to promote trade policies that can help tackle climate change through local and global initiatives.

The Coalition aims to build partnerships between trade and climate organisations to identify ways in which trade policy can contribute to tackling climate change. The coalition will promote trade and investment in goods, services and technologies that help mitigate and adapt to climate change.

An important part of the Coalition’s agenda is to determine how trade policies can support the most vulnerable developing and least developed countries exposed to the greatest risks due to climate change.

This high-level political dialogue will involve trade ministers from different regions with different income levels. The Coalition will involve civil society, businesses, international organisations and climate and financial organisations.

The coalition is open to all interested countries, and so far it has more than 50 ministers from 27 jurisdictions. The coalition is led by Ecuador, the EU, Kenya and New Zealand. The other participants are Angola, Australia, Barbados, Cabo Verde, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Iceland, The Gambia, Japan (Foreign Affairs and Trade), the Republic of Korea, the Maldives, Mozambique, Norway, the Philippines, Rwanda, Zambia, Singapore, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vanuatu.

The coalition will provide policy guidance and define trade strategies to adapt to changing climate conditions and extreme weather events, for example through the production, dissemination, availability and deployment of climate-friendly technologies. It will focus on finding trade solutions to the climate crisis in line with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and support work in this area within the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The next steps

The next ministerial meeting will take place in the margins of the next WTO Ministerial Conference planned for early 2024.

The context

The Climate Coalition was officially launched on 19 January 2022 at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. It aims to identify ways in which trade and trade policy can contribute to tackling the current climate crisis. It will act as a forum for high-level political dialogue to foster international cooperation on climate, trade and sustainable development.

More information

Website of the Coalition of Ministers of Trade for Climate

Source