Enforcing cooperation using issue linkage: Theory from the intersection of climate change and trade

About this event

Many observers advocate linking international climate policy with international trade to improve climate cooperation. Trade penalties could act as powerful levers to induce climate action in laggards, as the European Union’s carbon border adjustment mechanism illustrates. However, this perspective has overlooked the importance of organizing a coalition of states with high levels of climate policy ambition and high trade leverage over laggards. I argue that any climate-trade club needs to bargain over the club’s common internal climate policy depth and its external trade penalty depth but satisfying the policy constraints of club members along each dimension limits the ability to productively link issues. I model this dynamic and show with examples from climate politics that a climate-trade club will work best if it can uphold high climate standards and high trade penalties, but these goals may undermine each other based on the relationship between climate preferences and trade flows into and out of the club. States with the strongest support for climate action may have the least trade leverage over climate laggards, and vice versa.

Sam Rowan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University. His research focuses on international cooperation, institutional design, and climate politics. He holds a doctorate (DPhil) in International Relations from the University of Oxford.

*Please note that this is a hybrid-format meeting. In-person meeting will take place in Leacock Building #429, McGill University and will be broadcast on Zoom. Please register if you wish to attend the talk in either of these formats.