Enabling the Clean Energy Transition through Trade and Cooperation

The paper examines how trade policy can accelerate the clean energy transition by expanding access to renewable technologies. It highlights the role of the APEC List of Environmental Goods and the need to address non-tariff measures and global value chain complexities. The author advocates for a comprehensive approach that includes preferential treatment for components and services to reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of renewable energy deployment.

• The growth of the digital economy, including AI, data centres, and cryptocurrencies, is significantly increasing electricity demand, which the International Energy Agency expects will nearly double between 2022 and 2026.
• The APEC List of Environmental Goods has reduced tariffs to 5% or less on 54 goods; 15 of these are directly related to renewable energy and account for approximately 48% of APEC exports and 43% of APEC imports from that list.
• Despite tariff reductions, renewable energy products face significant non-tariff barriers, including quantitative restrictions, export and import formalities, and technical regulations that may exceed safety requirements.
• Recent trade agreements are targeting environmental goods to promote liberalization, such as the New Zealand-UK agreement covering 293 environmental goods and the Singapore-Australia green economy agreement covering 372 environmental goods.
• A global value chain approach is necessary because renewable technologies are complex; for example, a wind turbine requires at least 8,000 parts, and non-tariff measures like local content requirements can hinder producers by targeting these underlying components.
• The APEC Reference List of Environmental and Environmentally Related Services identifies seven sectors beneficial for clean energy, including engineering services for power plants and general construction of dams and power lines.

APA

Kuriyama, C. (2025). Enabling the Clean Energy Transition through Trade and Cooperation. Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs. https://tessforum.org/latest/enabling-the-clean-energy-transition-through-trade-and-cooperation

Chicago

Kuriyama, Carlos. Enabling the Clean Energy Transition through Trade and Cooperation. Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs, 2025. https://tessforum.org/latest/enabling-the-clean-energy-transition-through-trade-and-cooperation.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Kuriyama |first1=Carlos |title=Enabling the Clean Energy Transition through Trade and Cooperation |publisher=Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs |date=21 July 2025 |url=https://tessforum.org/latest/enabling-the-clean-energy-transition-through-trade-and-cooperation |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{kuriyama2025enabling, author = {Kuriyama, Carlos}, title = {{Enabling the Clean Energy Transition through Trade and Cooperation}}, institution = {Forum on Trade, Environment, \& the SDGs}, year = {2025}, month = jul, url = {https://tessforum.org/latest/enabling-the-clean-energy-transition-through-trade-and-cooperation}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }