Author Description

As Congress considers legislation to address climate change, and follows negotiations toward a new international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the question of the comparability of actions across countries frequently arises. Concerns are raised about what the appropriate sharing of efforts should be among countries, as well as the potential trade implications if countries undertake different levels of GHG reductions and, therefore, incur varying cost impacts on trade-sensitive sectors. This report summarizes the GHG control policies in effect or under consideration in the European Union (EU) and various other large countries, and offers a brief set of initial observations. It gives particular emphasis to how particular tradesensitive sectors may be treated in the context of each national program.