Trade, protectionism, and climate: Assessing analytical capacity in a changing policy landscape

Strategic, competitiveness-driven, and protectionist trade measures are reshaping global trade, while climate commitments face mounting urgency. This evolving policy landscape requires renewed scrutiny of the trade-climate nexus, as governments depart from liberalization and adopt interventions that affect trade and production patterns. This perspective offers a framework that integrates fragmented insights on trade-climate interactions and applies them to current policy developments. By mapping how trade influences emissions and identifying the conditions shaping environmental outcomes, the paper clarifies when and how different trade regimes may hinder or support climate objectives. Building on this foundation, the paper assesses whether existing data, modeling frameworks, and analytical tools are equipped to capture these dynamics and identifies critical gaps that limit current assessments. Finally, the paper outlines priorities for improving data integration, modeling approaches, and scenario design, proposing a forward-looking research agenda to strengthen the analytical basis for evaluating the climate implications of evolving trade regimes.