Climate Change and International Trade Law: A South African Perspective

Abstract

International trade is a major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Increasing GHG concentrations in the atmosphere ‘cause the sun’s heat (which would otherwise be radiated back into space) to be retained in the earth’s atmosphere, thereby contributing to the greenhouse effect that causes global warming and climate change’. In turn, the physical processes associated with climate change – increasing temperature and changes in precipitation, sea level rise and increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events – and the adoption of certain climate change response measures by South Africa’s major trading partners, the European Union (EU), China, the United States (US), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Japan and India, are likely to affect South Africa’s trading capacity. The linkages between international trade and climate change, either negative or positive, therefore, are relevant in respect of both mitigation and adaptation. In this chapter I examine some of South Africa’s response measures to mitigate, more precisely to reduce its GHG emissions attributable to trade, as well as to adapt to the consequences of climate change for its trading capacity (part 4). For this purpose I begin with demonstrating how international trade contributes to South Africa’s GHG emissions and how, in turn, the physical processes associated with climate change are likely to impact on South Africa’s trading capacity (part 1). I then continue with explaining the context, i.e. the linkages between international trade and climate change (part 2) in order to illustrate how the various climate change response measures adopted by South Africa’s major trading partners are also likely to affect its trading capacity (part 3).