Climate and Energy Provisions in Trade Agreements with Relevance to the Commonwealth

This paper considers domestic climate laws among Commonwealth countries and climate change language across an array of trade and investment agreements featuring Commonwealth parties in order to identify key trends and useful mechanisms for future agreement negotiations, particularly regarding climate-vulnerable countries and LDCs. It finds that Commonwealth countries have displayed innovation in their domestic climate legislation and trade and investment agreements, and that there is much potential for further development, particularly with respect to enhancing the resilience of climate-vulnerable states.