About trapca
The Trade Policy Training Centre in Africa (trapca) was established in 2006 as a joint initiative of the Eastern and Southern Africa Management Institute (ESAMI) and Lund University of Sweden, with funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). The Centre is hosted at the ESAMI headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania.
The mandate of trapca is to build and enhance capacity in trade policy matters in least-developed and other developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. In furtherance of this mandate, trapca facilitates networking and the sharing of information among the target countries. The core functions of the centre include the following:

• To provide academic and competence-based training in trade policy;• To generate new knowledge by serving as a catalyst for institutional change and research;
• To provide a forum for the exchange of knowledge, information and experiences; and
• To provide support in such areas as trade development, trade promotion and institutional capacity.

In furtherance of its mandate, trapca will be organizing a Trade Policy Research Forum in July 2012. This year’s Forum will focus on the emerging order on green economy and its ramifications on trade at the national, regional trade arrangements and multilateral levels.

Background

This research forum comes when the world reflects back on the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s Seventeenth Session of the Conference of
Parties (COP17) and the Seventh Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (MOP7) that took place in Durban in 2011 in South Africa. It also comes after the United Nations Rio+20 Earth Summit that took place in Brazil in June 2012. To this end, the forum focuses on issues pertaining to Climate Change and Trade with a particular interest on how such key global concerns link into Africa’s development and trade agendas. The forum is also a contribution to the body of cutting edge knowledge in the field of climate change (including the green economy) and trade. Such body of knowledge will also enhance the richness of the trapca
course on Green Economy and Trade Environment that will commence in October 2012. The global economic crisis of 2008 has brought a new impetus that demands a true
harmonisation of economic, social and environmental aspects in sustainable development. This has witnessed concerted efforts to address, especially climate change, biodiversity loss, water stress, energy security and jobs creation. To this end, there has emerged in the trade discourse a concern on how governments (including those from Africa) should engage with the climate change-trade interface moving forward.
RESEARCH THEMES AND SUB-THEMES
Climate Change, Trade and the Green Global Economy:

• Climate change negotiations: The state of play and the sustainable development discourse
• Trade policy in the context of climate change and transition to a green global economy

Climate Adaptation and Trade:

• Trade, poverty and climate change
• Trade, competitiveness and adaptation in African agriculture
• Fisheries, trade and climate change
• Tourism and climate change adaptation
• Building climate resilient cities and infrastructure for trade facilitation
• Dealing with weather based index insurance
• Barriers to climate change adaptation

Trade and Climate Mitigation:

• Carbon farming through REDD+ and trade related issues
• Trade in cleaner and renewable energy (to include issues on biofuels, food versus fuel debates, subsidies, mandates, tariffs, trade preferences etc)
• Sustainability criteria in biofuels (E.g. EU directive, direct and indirect land use change)
• The regulation of transport emissions (bunker fuels) and trade in Africa
• ETS schemes and trade rules (including the role of free allowances of emissions as potential subsidies)
• Clean energy subsidies and WTO law (feed in tariffs, local content requirements,manufacturing subsidies, R&D, etc.)

Environmentally Sound Technology and Standards:

• Environmentally Sound Technology (EST) transfer and diffusion, including the role of International Property Rights
• The role of environmental goods and services in the diffusion of EST
• Climate – related standards, labelling schemes and regulations (e.g. food miles,energy efficiency labelling schemes etc)

Governance, Climate Financing and Capacity Development:

• Domestic policies and their role in facilitating trade and transition to green economies
• Border carbon adjustment and potential impacts on Africa’s trade
• Carbon taxation and trade
• WTO law and climate change
• Fossil fuel subsidies and WTO law
• Green Climate Financing
• Aid for trade with the green global economy at hand
• Trade negotiations and capacity development under climate change regimes (WTO,UNFCCC, Regional agreements)

Deadlines

• Full papers in full conformity to the author guidelines – 30 May 2012
• Feedback on acceptance of paper for forum presentation – 27 June 2012
• Forum presentations – 7-8 August 2012