Trade and Climate Sustainability Brief Series 2025 – LSE & African Climate Foundation

Tulip carried out policy research for the African Climate Foundation (ACF) and the LSE Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa, producing policy briefs examining the intersection of climate change and trade policy. The work was designed to strengthen the evidence base available to African policymakers and negotiators engaging with rapidly evolving debates at the interface of trade, climate, and development.

Tulip contributed two briefs to the inaugural annual collection of Briefs on Trade and Climate Sustainability, published by the Africa Trade Policy Programme at the LSE Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa and the African Climate Foundation. Inspired by a growing recognition that trade and trade policy have a key role to play in advancing planetary sustainability, the collection brings together six briefs on topical trade-climate issues as a resource for African policymakers, trade and climate negotiators, private sector and civil society stakeholders, and international partners. Tulip’s two contributions examined, respectively, the sustainability outcomes of the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference and their implications for Africa, and Africa’s offensive and defensive interests in the greening of trade and WTO subsidy rules.

The research also covered the implications of carbon pricing mechanisms for African economies, examining how domestic and international carbon pricing instruments — including the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) — interact with Africa’s trade structures and industrial development objectives. A further strand addressed Africa’s interests in emerging WTO debates on green industrial policy and subsidy reform, examining how African countries can navigate these debates strategically while securing policy space for their own green industrialisation.

Through this work, Tulip brought together expertise in trade law and policy, as well as on climate and development to produce analysis that is both technically rigorous and practically relevant for African policymakers, designed to inform African engagement in multilateral and bilateral trade negotiations and support the ACF and LSE’s broader research and advocacy programmes on trade and climate in Africa.

Read the full series here.