Research On Environmental Standards In International Trade

With the further deepening of economic globalization, the impact of international trade on the global economy is getting more important, at the same time, the "green wave" is also sweeping the globe accompanied by the pace of economic globalization. "Green Wave" refers to environmental standards between countries or regional organizations based on the purpose of environmental protection, which plays a role in protecting the environment to some extent and alleviates environmental damage caused by the rapid development of industrialization. The impact of setting environmental standards for developed and developing countries is different: developed countries, after the long-term accumulation of the first, second industrial revolution, have crossed the early stages of industrialization which includes inconsistency between environmental protection and industrial development. Therefore, developed countries should develop strict environmental standards for the protection of environment and make a greater contribution to mankind’s environmental protection; the vast majority of developing countries did not achieve the accumulation of capital, technology and so on in the first two industrial revolutions, therefore, they are still in the early stages of industrialization, consuming significant resources and energy. The contradictory between environmental protection and industrial development is also more prominent. Therefore, due to different development stages of different countries, the formulating of environmental standards is also different and these differences may lead to generate trade friction which will be more apparent due to the wide gap of industrial development between the developed and developing countries.Environmental standards is increasingly becoming an important element in international trade rules, but environmental standards between different countries and economic organizations are different, so, studying environmental protection standards for international trade has important theoretical and practical significance. This paper studies issues of environmental standards in international trade, including three main research areas: the relationship between international trade and environmental protection standards, environmental standards set by the current major developed economies and important international organizations, new environmental standards trends in international trade. These three aspects of research has three meanings: the existence of complementary and coordinated development of the relationship between international trade and environmental protection standards, which requires us to do while avoiding disadvantages, to achieve mutual benefit and win-win trade between development and environmental protection; developed economies use its dominant position in science and technology to set advanced environmental standards, which is important for the worldly environmental protection, therefore, it has important research value; because of the positive correlation between industrialization and environmental protection, the higher the degree of industrialization the more stringent standards are required, so the new trend of environmental protection standards is mainly advocated by developed economies. Countries around the world, particularly developing countries can make response plans in advance to keep abreast of new trends in these standards.Currently, new generation of environmental protection standards that developed economies advocated include carbon tariffs, environmental labeling and pollution transfer, These new environmental standards for developing countries is a double-edged sword: on the one side, they promote economic restructuring and upgrading in developing countries and pay more attention to environmental protection, on the other side, they inhibit the foreign trade of developing countries to some extent.After thirty years of rapid development of reform and opening up, China’s economic construction has achieved remarkable results, becoming the world’s largest trading nation but as the world’s largest developing country, China has become the biggest victim of the new trade protectionism and has become a WTO member country which suffers anti-dumping and countervailing investigations the most for many years. United States and Europe are working to bring a new generation of environmental standards as an important part of international trade standards, China is facing severe challenges as trading nation status This paper analyses the current problems between international trade development and environmental protection and contrast of the gap between China and the major developed economies and international organizations on the environmental standards, and rationalization of policy recommendations to solve the problems and gaps.Full text is divided into four parts: The first part is the preface, mainly including the background, meaning, current research, literature review and research methods used in the process of writing; the second part is overview of international trade and environmental protection, including environmental protection overview, the relationship between international trade and environmental protection, interaction between environmental protection standards and international trade; third part is regulation of environmental protection standards in international trade by international community, including regulation of environmental protection standards by international organizations, new trends of environmental protection standards in international trade. Through the study of environmental standards in international organizations, developed economies as well as new trends in future environmental standards, the country’s foreign trade development can be targeted, and we can also reduce losses brought from external environmental standards; The fourth part is related issues of the development of China’s foreign trade and environmental standards, including the achievements in country’s foreign trade and construction of environmental standards, current problems that exist in environmental standards in the development of China’s foreign trade, practices of environmental standards in our foreign trade, the results of implementation of current environmental standards, as well as policies and measures of further improvement of green trade level. This section focuses on the analysis of the achievements and underlying problems in construction of foreign trade and environmental standards, and on this basis, put forward feasible policy recommendations.