Green Industrialisation and Trade: Roundtable Summary

August 19, 2025

On June 24, 2025, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Climate Action Network (CAN) International convened a dinner roundtable on the sidelines of the UNFCCC's SB 62 climate conference in Bonn, Germany. The gathering brought together climate negotiators, civil society representatives, researchers, and trade justice campaigners to discuss the growing tensions and opportunities at the intersection of green industrialisation, international trade, and climate cooperation. 

The backdrop to the conversation was a rapidly shifting global landscape: the resurgence of 'industrial policy' tools, the implementation of carbon border measures like the EU's CBAM, rising competition over critical minerals, and a fragmented multilateral system struggling to keep pace with climate imperatives. At the same time, developing countries are under pressure to decarbonise without adequate financial, technological, or institutional support, while facing trade constraints that restrict their policy space.

The roundtable sought to explore how developing countries can navigate these structural asymmetries, assert greater agency in shaping green industrialisation pathways, and rethink the role of trade and cooperation within the climate transition. It also interrogated the role that the UNFCCC, despite its limitations, might play in surfacing and addressing these challenges, and what a more constructive, equitable trade-climate agenda could look like.

Contact:

Avantika Goswami
Avantika.goswami@cseindia.org