Leaked document: EU Ditches Climate Measures at COP21 as Trade Trumps Climate
Over the past months, climate campaigners across the globe
have pushed trade policy onto the agenda ahead of COP21 in Paris. The
message: current trade agreements impact negatively on the climate, and
any solution to climate change, or even the first feeble steps, requires
changes to the global trade order and a revamp of trade agreements,
including on “trade related” issues such as intellectual property rights
and investment protection. Some have gone a step further and tabled
demands on trade to be dealt with as part of an agreement in Paris.
But the EU position on such ideas appears to be crystal clear: no mention of trade in any agreement on climate change. A leaked document
presented by DG Clima to the Council’s trade policy committee on 20
November shows the EU is against “any explicit mention of trade”, any
mention of intellectual property rights, and vows the EU will “minimize
discussions on trade related issues”.
The links between climate change and trade have been documented long
ago. The expansion of world trade following the ratification of the WTO
Agreements in 1994, pretty much undermined targets in the Kyoto Protocol
. And on numerous occasions since then, trade agreements have been used
to limit or prevent the use of policy measures intended to reduce
emissions. Stark examples include the attack by the Lone Pine
Corporation on a moratorium on fracking in the province of Quebec in
Canada. Also, the WTO rules have been proven hostile to climate
measures, as in two cases when major renewable energy projects in India and Canada
were destabilized when the trade organisation’s dispute settlement body
asked the two governments to do away with the “local content rules”
that were key to the projects. Both complaints were supported by the EU,
and the decision against the Canadian scheme was warmly welcomed by the European Commission.
