A pro-development green trade agenda for COP28

This policy brief was published in collaboration with Europe Jacques Delors ahead of the 2023 UN Climate Conference (COP28), a landmark event that for the first time included trade in the Official COP Programme, recognizing trade’s pivotal role in climate solutions. The brief explores development-friendly approaches to two critical climate mitigation policy areas: carbon pricing and border carbon adjustment (BCAs) schemes, and trade in transition minerals.

On carbon pricing and BCAs, the authors examine how the EU’s CBAM and similar border carbon measures being considered by other major economies could affect developing countries. They argue that while such measures can help prevent carbon leakage and incentivize decarbonization, their design needs to account for the specific circumstances of countries at different stages of development. The paper highlights the importance of revenue recycling, technical assistance, and phased implementation to ensure that border carbon measures do not disproportionately burden economies with limited capacity to adopt low-carbon technologies.

On transition minerals, the brief focuses on the critical raw materials — including lithium, cobalt, copper, and rare earth elements — that are essential for the clean energy transition. Many developing countries, particularly in Africa and Latin America, are major producers of these minerals but face significant challenges in capturing value from extraction and processing. The authors explore how trade policy can be designed to support local beneficiation, technology transfer, and sustainable mining practices, rather than reproducing the extractive patterns that have characterized traditional commodity trade.

The brief draws on the EU’s experience and engagement at COP28 to highlight the growing importance of the trade-climate-development interface in multilateral climate negotiations. It argues that for the climate transition to be globally effective and politically sustainable, major economies must adopt a pro-development approach that recognizes the legitimate industrialization and development aspirations of lower-income countries.

Finally, the authors conclude by calling for greater coordination between trade, climate, and development policy communities, and for concrete measures — including climate finance, technology sharing, and regulatory cooperation — that ensure the benefits and burdens of the green transition are more equitably distributed.