Climate Change and Trade: The Challenges for Southern Africa

Image: Flickr, Un-Alien-able
Image: Flickr, Un-Alien-able

The long-awaited Copenhagen summit on climate change gave to the world a broad political agreement, but without any teeth.

Meanwhile concerns over the climate change agenda finding its way into the multilateral trading system are growing, at a time when the trading system is struggling to find its own feet. South Africa’s economy, and by extension Southern Africa’s economy, is based on resource production and to some extent beneficiation, in turn dependent on cheap energy. Its international visibility – not least in climate change negotiations – means that it may be in line for imposition of trade policy measures on its carbon-intensive exports.

Climate Change and Trade straddles several distinctive bodies of knowledge, notably trade policy and diplomacy, and environment policy and diplomacy, in order to shed light on these challenges from a Southern African perspective. As such it represents the first major attempt to synthesise these ‘sealed’ policy challenges and sketch policy implications for the region.

The book is divided into two sections. The first addresses the global and multilateral dynamics in climate change negotiations, and their relationship to the trading system, notably the World Trade Organization. The second focuses on Southern Africa, revealing the state of knowledge with respect to projected climate warming impacts on the region, and a series of case studies that detail country-specific climate and trade issues in Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique and Zambia.

Contents include:

Introduction
Peter Draper

PART 1: MULTILATERAL ISSUES IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE

Overview of the global shift towards a low-carbon economy: Opportunities and challenges
Bernice Lee, Felix Preston and Antony Froggatt

Technology transfer and intellectual property rights in a post-Kyoto regime
Samantha Gregory

Financing solutions to climate change in sub-Saharan Africa: Towards an assessment of institutional and market challenges
Sheila Kiratu and Suryapratim Roy

Multilateral trade policies and measure in post-Kyoto structures
Loretta Feris

PART 2: SOUTHERN AFRICAN CLIMATE CHALLENGES – CASE STUDIES

The scientific basis for climate change over Southern Africa
Francois A Engelbrecht

South Africa’s dilemma: Reconciling energy-climate challenges with global climate responsibilities
Romy Chevallier

Mozambique and climate change
Gilberto Biacuana

Trade and climate change in Zambia
Humphrey Mulemba

The economic and social impacts of climate change: The case of Botswana
Victoria Ndzinge-Anderson

How might Southern Africa begin to respond to climate change? A Synthesis of Key Findings
Ivan Mbirimi

The views expressed in this publication/article are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA).

12 Aug 2010