Accelerating Progress on Nature, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development in a Shifting International Trading System

The document analyzes the shift in international trade from a focus on liberalization toward 'multipurpose' approaches driven by geopolitics and national security. It argues that this complexity provides opportunities to embed nature and climate goals into trade agendas. The author proposes a new paradigm that reframes trade as a strategic tool for sustainability, emphasizing a 'nature-positive' narrative and the integration of climate mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage. Key recommendations include reorienting trade rules to reward sustainable production, scaling the diffusion of green technologies, and ensuring that developing countries are not unfairly burdened by environmental requirements. The paper identifies multiple entry points for action, including WTO reform, regional agreements like AfCFTA, and the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

• International trade is shifting away from a long-standing focus on liberalization and efficiency toward 'multipurpose' approaches where trade policies are used to prioritize domestic production, strategic autonomy, and national security.
• The current trade landscape is characterized by increasing fragmentation and a proliferation of bilateral, regional, and plurilateral arrangements, which can lead to a lack of transparency and higher costs of action for sustainability.
• Developing countries face a 'climate debt trap' where high debt burdens limit their ability to invest in climate resilience, increasing their reliance on exports to service that debt.
• The author proposes a new global trade narrative that includes an explicit 'nature-positive' focus and expands the 'trade and climate' discourse to include all three pillars of the global climate agenda: mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage.
• A proposed policy agenda for a sustainable trading system includes reorienting investment rules to remove environmentally harmful subsidies, such as those for fossil fuels and overfishing, and rewarding sustainable production practices.
• The World Trade Organization (WTO) provides opportunities for sustainability through member-led initiatives like the Trade and Environmental Sustainability Structured Discussions (TESSD), the Dialogue on Plastics Pollution and Environmentally Sustainable Plastics Trade (DPP), and Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform (FFSR).
• The Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies is identified as the WTO's first 'environmental' agreement, targeting subsidies that contribute to illegal fishing and marine resource depletion.
• The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), specifically Target 18, offers a pathway to reform subsidies that harm biodiversity in sectors with high international trade volumes, such as agriculture and fisheries.
• There is a risk that the rapid pursuit of bilateral trade deals to consolidate relations may lead to the sidelining of environmental issues and parliamentary oversight.
• The proliferation of voluntary sustainability schemes and corporate pledges has led to fragmentation and 'greenwashing' concerns, suggesting a need for intergovernmental guidance or minimum international requirements, such as a proposed 'Codex Planetarius' for agriculture.

APA

Birkbeck, C. D. (2025). Accelerating Progress on Nature, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development in a Shifting International Trading System. Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs. https://lyrical-cormorant.files.svdcdn.com/production/assets/images/Publications/TESS-WWF-Accelerating-Progress-on-Nature-and-Trade.pdf?dm=1758100122

Chicago

Birkbeck, Carolyn Deere. Accelerating Progress on Nature, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development in a Shifting International Trading System. Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs, 2025. https://lyrical-cormorant.files.svdcdn.com/production/assets/images/Publications/TESS-WWF-Accelerating-Progress-on-Nature-and-Trade.pdf?dm=1758100122.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Birkbeck |first1=Carolyn Deere |title=Accelerating Progress on Nature, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development in a Shifting International Trading System |publisher=Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs |date=September 2025 |url=https://lyrical-cormorant.files.svdcdn.com/production/assets/images/Publications/TESS-WWF-Accelerating-Progress-on-Nature-and-Trade.pdf?dm=1758100122 |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{birkbeck2025accelerating, author = {Birkbeck, Carolyn Deere}, title = {{Accelerating Progress on Nature, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development in a Shifting International Trading System}}, institution = {Forum on Trade, Environment, \& the SDGs}, year = {2025}, month = sep, url = {https://lyrical-cormorant.files.svdcdn.com/production/assets/images/Publications/TESS-WWF-Accelerating-Progress-on-Nature-and-Trade.pdf?dm=1758100122}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }