The Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) just transition is often framed as a clean energy story. This story is incomplete, and for highly trade-dependent Caribbean economies, it must also be shaped by new trade rules, including carbon-related border measures, sustainability standards, and due diligence requirements that are increasingly becoming conditions of market access. 

These shifts generate a dual pathway: new risks for exporters and micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), but also real opportunities to diversify into low-carbon goods and services. This turning point demands that CARICOM’s just transition strategy be trade-aware and aimed at protecting livelihoods, building competitiveness, and mobilizing finance for climate-resilient development.

A just transition goes far beyond the goal of lowering emissions. It concerns how economies change so that workers, communities, and vulnerable groups are protected, included, and able to share in new opportunities generated by the transition.

Global just transition frameworks have largely emerged from contexts where the primary task is the managed decline of domestic fossil fuel production and associated labour market adjustment, particularly in coal, oil, and gas. In most CARICOM states, the deeper challenge is structural: reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels, strengthening climate resilience across key sectors, and doing so with limited fiscal space and uneven institutional capacity.

CARICOM’s just transition is therefore best framed as a regional development strategy, rather than a single-sector labour shift.

A small Caribbean agro-processor trying to sell abroad may soon face a very different world: buyers asking for proof of sustainable sourcing, digital traceability records, supplier declarations, and compliance audits. What looks like “environment policy” increasingly functions as a new set of market access conditions.

Climate-linked trade measures can therefore create a clear risk pathway for CARICOM producers through: (i) higher compliance costs (certification, auditing, reporting), (ii) administrative burdens that fall hardest on MSMEs and informal operators, (iii) loss of competitiveness if firms cannot meet new requirements fast enough, and (iv) unequal impacts across countries, depending on capacity and export structure.

Some multilateral processes are beginning to acknowledge these concerns. Under the World Trade Organization’s Trade and Environmental Sustainability Structured Discussions, the Working Group on Trade-related Climate Measures has emphasized technical assistance and capacity building for developing countries and MSMEs as climate-linked measures expand. However, for small developing states, the key question is whether support will be predictable, scaled, and delivered in time to prevent exclusion from export markets.

Recent global climate outcomes make the trade-transition link impossible to ignore. COP30’s Belém Political Package explicitly acknowledged developing countries’ concerns about “climate change-related trade-restrictive unilateral measures,” reflecting how border carbon tools and other climate-linked import rules are increasingly treated as equity issues that can shift transition costs onto poorer, trade-dependent economies. In parallel, CARICOM has begun strengthening its own regional architecture: the CARICOM Environmental and Natural Resources Policy Framework was launched at the opening ceremony of the 118th Special Meeting of the Council on Trade and Economic Development, which recognizes that competitiveness in international markets is increasingly shaped by environmental requirements, including through experiences associated with implementing trade commitments such as those under the CARIFORUM–EU Economic Partnership Agreement. 

A trade-informed just transition can therefore help CARICOM: (i) upgrade production to meet evolving standards (and keep market access), (ii) diversify into less climate-exposed, higher value-added activities, (iii) expand services exports, including digital delivery, (iv) attract needed investment into renewable energy and climate-smart sectors, and (v) build stronger regional value chains so benefits stay in the region.

One vivid example of a low-carbon opportunity is the orange economy (creative and cultural industries). Notably, creative industries contribute around 5% of regional GDP and employ about 3% of the workforce, an encouraging reminder that diversification does not have to be carbon-intensive to be economically meaningful. 

In practical terms, this means that CARICOM’s trade agenda should be explicitly aligned with six proposed Just Transition principles: 

1. Social justice and equity
2. Effective governance and policy coherence
3. Inclusive participation and stakeholder engagement
4. Economic resilience and diversification
5. Alignment with climate, development, and environmental goals
6. Investment and financing for the green transition 

Together these principles provide a structured way to assess sectoral vulnerabilities, distribute transition benefits fairly, and ensure that trade policy does not simply react to external rules, but actively shapes the region’s strategic positioning in emerging low-carbon value chains.

There are five priority actions for CARICOM’s trade agenda grounded in just transition principles

1. Establish “national just transition planning commissions” to co-design sectoral roadmaps with communities, workers, and employers with social protection, retraining, and targeted support for women, youth, and rural households. Prioritize a region-wide programme for reskilling, upskilling, and digital literacy.
2. Create a regional just transition mechanism under an existing CARICOM organ to harmonize climate, trade, and industrial policies and reduce fragmented implementation across member states.
3. Institutionalize continuous social dialogue across all stages of policymaking, and provide resources and training so MSMEs, unions, fisherfolk, farmers, cultural networks, and civil society can participate meaningfully.
4. Mobilize scaled and inclusive financing through concessional finance, climate funds, blended finance, and debt-for-climate swaps, not only for infrastructure but also for reskilling, social protection, and MSME participation in green value chains. Bundling regional projects can enhance scale and bargaining power.
5. Track what matters through research-led monitoring and evaluation, including indicators on job losses and gains, trade competitiveness, and community resilience, so risks are identified early and policy interventions can be adjusted in time.

For CARICOM, the just transition is not only about cleaner energy. It is about whether the region can stay competitive, protect livelihoods, and diversify in a global economy where climate expectations are increasingly written into the rules of trade. A trade-informed just transition framework helps CARICOM manage the risk pathway, build the opportunity pathway, and ensure the gains of transformation are shared equitably. 

* This article is derived from the policy paper A Just Transition Framework for CARICOM Trade authored by Peta-Gay Facey Wilson and co-published by TESS and SRC.

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Peta-Gay Facey Wilson is Assistant Attorney-General in the International Affairs Division of the Attorney-General’s Chambers of Jamaica; and Adjunct Lecturer at The University of the West Indies.

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Synergies by TESS is a blog dedicated to promoting inclusive policy dialogue at the intersection of trade, environment, and sustainable development, drawing on perspectives from a range of experts from around the globe. The editor is Fabrice Lehmann.

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