Trade

​​Why it matters

​Industrial value chains are global today and are likely to remain so. Fuels, chemicals and metals are traded internationally, and the most competitive clean industrial value chains will be those built deliberately across borders – combining renewable energy, feedstocks, technology and end-markets from different parts of the world. For project developers, that means trade conditions determine whether they can source the best inputs at the lowest cost, and export production to the most promising markets.

​Where are we now

​Against a backdrop of increasing trade tensions, global trade flows are rebalancing, and clean industry will help determine what gets produced where in the future– with lower-cost renewable regions supplying where local capacity falls short. Projects are actively pursuing cross-border commercial partnerships and governments can now start exploring which alliances will serve their strategic objectives, but three barriers persist: fragmented demand too small to underpin commercial-scale investment; incompatible carbon accounting and certification standards; and first-mover risk, since no country wants to move first alone.

​Early partnerships are starting to test the fix: the EU’s Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships, and Australia–Korea’s corridor on standards and de-risking. Both face the key question of how to protect national strategic interests at home – protecting value and jobs locally – while ensuring resilience and long-term competitiveness. Where interests converge, the tools are starting to emerge: market access deals, market-makers like H2Global, and export credit agencies de-risking construction.​