What Now for Sustainable Trade, the Climate Agenda and the Global Trade System?

Reconciling global trade and sustainability

Moderator:
Rem Korteweg, Senior Research Fellow, Clingendael Institute

Panellists:
Geneviève Pons, Director General of the Brussels office, Jacque Delors Institute
Pascal Lamy, President Emeritus, Jacques Delors Institute

This podcast episode was recorded on July 16 2020

The AIG Global Trade Series 2020 examines the ongoing challenges, opportunities and transformations that are reshaping the world’s multilateral trading system.

As politicians and business leaders focus on restoring the world economy after the sudden disruption caused by COVID-19, it seems that the concerns with climate change have taken a back seat. And yet, in the EU, there is real leadership being seen when it comes to using the green agenda to drive economic recovery.

In this podcast, moderator Rem Korteweg of the Clingendael Institute is joined by Geneviève Pons, director general of the Brussels office of the Jacque Delors Institute and honorary Director of the European Commission; and Pascal Lamy, president emeritus of the Jacque Delors Institute and the former director general of the World Trade Organization and former EU trade commissioner. Listen as they discuss the link between the future of the global trade system, the effort to address climate change, and how COVID-19 has impacted it all.

Can job creation, investment, redevelopment, fossil fuel transition and waste management be aligned with green agenda targets? Can trade liberalization be promoted while also preserving climate conditionalities and carbon border adjustments? Or, are the worlds of global trade and sustainability simply too far apart to ever reconcile?

The Delors Institute published a report ‘Greener After’ which focuses on the green recovery stimulus for Europe post COVID-19. Many of the topics covered in this podcast are developed in the report. The Greener After report can be found here - https://institutdelors.eu/publications/greener-after/.

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