Do PTAs with environmental provisions reduce GHG emissions? Distinguishing the effectiveness of climate-related provisions

This paper assesses the effectiveness on climate change mitigation of the environmental-related commitments contained in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). The starting question is does any PTA with environmental provisions reduce emissions? Because of a lack of detailed data on PTAs, the academic literature on the role of PTAs with environmental provisions (PTAwEP) in global climate governance remains limited. A novel and detailed database identifying nearly 300 different types of environmental provisions from more than 680 PTAs since 1947 allows us to distinguish the PTAs with climate-related provisions (PTAwCP) from those with provisions related to other environmental issues. Using panel data covering 165 countries over the period 1995 to 2012, controlling for endogeneity issues, our main result shows that PTAwCP statistically reduce the emissions while the effect of PTAs with provisions related to other environmental issues remains a negative but not significant on emissions. Our results suggest that it is rather the specific climaterelated provisions in PTAwEP that positively affect the environmental quality. Thus, to be effective in terms of mitigating climate change, PTAwEP should contain climate-related commitments.