- The UK has positioned itself post-Brexit as a champion of
both free trade and environmental protection.
- A major new Centre for Policy Studies paper argues that these
goals can and should be mutually reinforcing - that the UK should
use its post-Brexit trading freedoms to push for green growth.
- The report recommends:
- Abolishing all tariffs and barriers on environmental
goods and services.
- Leading global efforts to develop carbon border tariffs
to ensure the climate costs of producing goods are accounted
for.
- Joining the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and
Sustainability, set up by New Zealand, Norway and others.
- Reducing and ultimately abolishing tax breaks for fossil
fuel production and consumption.
- It also argues that the presidencies of the G7 and COP26 put
the UK in a unique position to promote and coordinate
international efforts on environmental action.
Free markets and clean free trade can be the best way to protect
the environment and promote environmental standards, according to
the leading centre right think tank, the Centre for Policy
Studies.
Ahead of COP26 in November, a new CPS report, ‘Clean Free Trade’,
shows how the Government can reconcile its ambitions of leading
in the fight against climate change and other environmental
threats while championing free trade.
The report, supported by the Conservative Environment Network,
highlights that international trade has been instrumental in
lifting billions from abject poverty. In the 12 months before the
pandemic struck, the combined value of imports and exports
exceeded £1.4 trillion, equivalent to 64% of total economic
output.
Trade is good for the environment, it argues, as it increases
production efficiency, spreads new technologies, and equips
individuals with the resources needed to address environmental
degradation.
The report’s author, Eamonn Ives, sets out a number of steps the
Government should take to speed up decarbonisation, improve air
quality and increase prosperity both in the UK and overseas.
Specifically, the think tank is calling on the government to:
· Remove tariff and non-tariff barriers on the trading of
environmental goods and services, to minimise the costs and
challenges to individuals and businesses of adopting green
solutions.
· Reduce and ultimately abolish tax breaks and subsidies for
fossil fuel consumption and production.
· Join the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability,
one of the most high-profile environmental trade initiatives,
which seeks to remove tariffs and liberalise trade on
environmental goods and services.
· Lead on global efforts to introduce carbon border tariffs to
ensure the climate costs of producing goods are accounted for and
level the playing field between nations which enforce strict
climate policies and those which do not.
· Task the Climate Change Committee with scoping a Net Zero
consumption target allowing the Government to more accurately and
honestly communicate British decarbonisation efforts.
Eamonn Ives, Head of Energy and Environment at the
CPS, said:
‘International free trade and protecting the environment are
often seen as contradictory endeavours. Our report argues that
they can and do support each other – and makes a series of
recommendations which the Government could adopt to ensure its
newly independent trade policy is one that delivers both economic
and environmental prosperity.
‘As the host of the G7 and COP26, it is incumbent on the UK
to be leading the debate in terms of how we can better protect
the environment, and rebound from the economic consequences of
the coronavirus pandemic. By committing to Clean Free Trade, it
can do just that.’
Sam Hall, Director of the Conservative Environment
Network, said:
'It is time that we harnessed the incredible power of free
trade to tackle the biggest environmental challenges of our age.
This report brilliantly sets out how our trade and climate
policies can be brought into harmony and how Global Britain can
lead the world in clean free trade. Making it easier to trade
clean goods and services will make the world greener, freer, and
more prosperous.'
