ENhanced understanding of Trade Impacts on Climate, industries, and the Environment

Despite the wide recognition of the complex interactions between trade (policy) and climate (policy), the state-of-the-art capabilities in macroeconomic models face substantial limitations, such as lack of granular data, dependence on conventional trade theories, limited empirical evidence on trade-climate interactions, limited representation of the value and material chain in key (existing and emerging) sectors, heavy reliance on frameworks not accounting for endogenous technical change, limited understanding of the role of developing countries in trade, etc.ENTICE aims to develop novel data and modelling capacity to enhance our knowledge and inform policymakers on the positive and negative impacts of trade and trade policy on climate and the environment, by combining well-established macroeconomic modelling with new trade theories, empirical analysis, and enhanced data granularity.

The project will focus on emissions and climate change issues but also integrate the broader effects on the environment, biodiversity, pollution, and natural resources depletion.

The ENTICE work programme includes a novel theoretical conceptualisation of trade, climate, environment, and industry interactions, significant improvements to sectoral detail and relevant granularity in the GTAP database, integrating the new data into and enhancing a toolbox of well-renowned CGE, macroeconometric, integrated assessment, and sectoral models and other methodologies, and analysis of the interactions between trade (policy), climate (policy), the environment, and broader economic and sustainability objectives in the EU and beyond.

Finally, ENTICE places considerable emphasis on transparency, legitimacy, and open science and data, as well as on development and research that directly respond to stakeholder needs and trade and climate policy discourse.