Person:
Brenton, Paul

Trade and Regional Integration
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INTERNATIONAL TRADE, CLIMATE CHANGE, CARBON ACCOUNTING, TRADE POLICY
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Trade and Regional Integration
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Last updated: January 31, 2023
Biography
Paul Brenton is Lead Economist in the Trade and Regional Integration Unit of the World Bank. He focuses on analytical and operation work on trade and regional integration. He has led the implementation of World Bank lending operations such as the Great Lakes Trade Facilitation Project in DR Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. He co-authored the joint World Bank-WTO report on The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty and has managed a range of policy-oriented volumes including: De-Fragmenting Africa: Deepening Regional Trade Integration in Goods and Services; Africa can Help Feed Africa; and Carbon Footprints and Food Systems: Do Current Accounting Methodologies Disadvantage Developing Countries? Paul joined the World Bank in 2002, having previously been Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Trade Policy Unit at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. Before that, he lectured in economics at the University of Birmingham in the UK. He has a PhD in Economics from the University of East Anglia. A collection of Paul’s work has been published in the volume International Trade, Distribution and Development: Empirical Studies of Trade Policies (https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/9172 ).
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Author: Brenton, Paul × End date: 2021 × Document Type: Publications & Research × Has files: Yes × Topic: Environment ×

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    The Trade and Climate Change Nexus: The Urgency and Opportunities for Developing Countries
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-09-29) Brenton, Paul; Chemutai, Vicky
    While trade exacerbates climate change, it is also a central part of the solution because it has the potential to enhance mitigation and adaptation. This timely report explores the different ways in which trade and climate change intersect. Trade contributes to the emissions that cause global warming and is itself also affected by climate change through changing comparative advantages. The report also confronts several myths concerning trade and climate change. The report focuses on the impacts of, and adjustments to, climate change in developing countries and on how future trade opportunities will be affected by both the changing climate and the policy responses to address it. The report discusses how trade can provide the goods and services that drive mitigation and adaptation. It also addresses how climate change creates immense challenges for developing countries, but also new opportunities to promote trade diversification in the transition to a low-carbon world. Suitable trade and environmental policies can offer effective economic incentives to attain both sustainable growth and poverty reduction.
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    Emerging Emitters and Global Carbon Mitigation Efforts
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-12) Cui, Can; Guan, Dabo; Wang, Daoping; Chemutai, Vicky; Brenton, Paul
    International efforts to avoid dangerous climate change have historically focused on reducing energy-related carbon-di-oxide (CO2) emissions from countries with the largest economies, including the EU and U.S., and/or the largest populations, such as, China and India. However, in recent years, emissions have surged among a different, much less-examined group of countries, raising the issue of how to address a next generation of high-emitting economies that need strong growth to reduce relatively high levels of poverty. They are also among the countries most at risk from the adverse impacts of climate change. Compounding the paucity of analyses of these emerging emitters, the long-term effects of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on economic activity and energy systems remain unclear. Here, the authors analyze the trends and drivers of emissions in each of the fifty-nine developing countries whose emissions over 2010-2018 grew faster than the global average (excluding China and India), and then project their emissions under a range of pandemic recovery scenarios. Although future emissions diverge considerably depending on responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19) and subsequent recovery pathways, the authors find that emissions from these countries nonetheless reach a range of 5.1-7.1 Gt CO2 by 2040 in all their scenarios, substantially in excess of emissions from these regions in published scenarios that limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius . The authors results highlight the critical importance of ramping up mitigation efforts in countries that to this point have played a limited role in contributing the stock of atmospheric CO2 while also ensuring the sustained economic growth that will be necessary to eliminate extreme poverty and drive the extensive adaptation to climate change that will be required.
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    Carbon Footprints and Food Systems : Do Current Accounting Methodologies Disadvantage Developing Countries?
    (World Bank, 2010) Edwards-Jones, Gareth; Brenton, Paul; Jensen, Michael Friis
    Carbon accounting and labeling are new instruments of supply chain management and, in some cases, of regulation that may affect trade from developing counties. These instruments are used to analyze and present information on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from supply chains with the hope that they will help bring about reductions of GHGs. The designers of these schemes are caught in a dilemma: on one hand they have to respond to policy and corporate agendas to create new ways of responding to climate change challenges, while on the other they rely on very rudimentary knowledge about the actual GHG emissions emanating from the varied production systems that occur around the globe. This is because the underlying science of GHG emissions from agricultural systems is only partially developed; this is particularly true for supply chains that include activities in developing countries (Edwards-Jones et al., 2009). As a result of the pressures placed on designers and users of carbon accounting and labeling instruments, who are predominantly based in industrialized countries, there is a risk that carbon accounting and labeling instruments will not adequately represent production systems in developing countries. This report seeks to examine the potential for emerging carbon accounting and labeling schemes to accurately represent the production systems in developing countries. In order to achieve this it includes analyses of typical problems that may occur if the characteristics of developing countries' production systems are not taken into account properly. By doing this, the report provides relevant and necessary scientific data that illustrate potential problem areas that, if not addressed, may lead to developing-country carbon efficiencies not being given proper credit.
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    Pathways to African Export Sustainability
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012-07-02) Cadot, Olivier; Brenton, Paul; Pierola, Martha Denisse
    This report provides tentative leads toward such policy prescriptions, based on an overview of the empirical evidence. Chapter one sets the stage by putting Africa's export-survival performance into perspective and proposing a framework that will guide the interpretation of empirical evidence throughout the report. Chapter two covers country-level determinants of export sustainability at origin and destination, including the exporting country's business environment. Chapter three explores some of the firm-level evidence on what drives export sustainability, including uncertainty, incomplete contracts, learning, and networks. Finally, chapter four offers tentative policy implications. The main conclusions from this overview of the causes of Africa's low export sustainability should be taken with caution both because of the complexity of the issue and because of the very fragmentary evidence on which the overview is based. The author should be more cautious in drawing policy implications, as hasty policy prescriptions are the most common trap into which reports of this kind can fall. A first, solid conclusion is that the author needs substantial additional work on the nature and causes of low export survival rates in developing countries to determine the path to high export sustainability.
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    Can Carbon Labeling Be Development Friendly? Recommendations on How to Improve Emerging Schemes
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-08) Edwards-Jones, Gareth; Brenton, Paul; Jensen, Michael F.
    Carbon accounting and labeling for products are new instruments of supply chain management that may affect developing country export opportunities. Most instruments in use today are private business management tools, although the underlying science and methodologies may spread to issues subject to public regulation. This note seeks to inform stakeholders involved in the design of carbon labeling schemes and in the making of carbon emission measurement methodologies about an overlooked issue: how can carbon labeling be made to be both development friendly and scientifically correct in its representation of developing-country agricultural sectors?
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    Can Carbon Labeling Be Development Friendly?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-07) Edwards-Jones, Gareth; Brenton, Paul; Jensen, Michael F.
    Carbon accounting and labeling for products are new instruments of supply chain management that may affect developing country export opportunities. Most instruments in use today are private business management tools, although the underlying science and methodologies may spread to issues subject to public regulation. This note seeks to inform stakeholders involved in the design of carbon labeling schemes and in the making of carbon emission measurement methodologies about an overlooked issue: how can carbon labeling are made to be both developments friendly and scientifically correct in its representation of developing-country agricultural sectors? As a result of the pressures placed on designers and users of carbon accounting and labeling instruments, there is a risk that carbon accounting and labeling instruments will not properly represent the complexity of production systems in developing countries.
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    Carbon Labeling and Poor Country Exports
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-07) Edwards-Jones, Gareth; Brenton, Paul; Friis, Michael Jensen
    Carbon labelling is being adopted by private firms as a mechanism for mitigating climate change. Such schemes are likely to have a significant impact on low-income country exports due to the need for transportation and the small size of their exporters. However, transport emissions may be offset by favorable production conditions and size bias may be reduced. The design and implementation of carbon labelling will need to take into account a number of complex, technical challenges. As innovative solutions emerge, it is important that low income countries are involved in discussions on the design and implementation of carbon labelling.