No mention of climate change in the TPP: Sierra Club report shows “dirty deal” means environmental disaster
Salon 12/02/15.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is more than 6,000 pages long, but does not mention the words “climate change” once.
This is one of the many findings in a new report by leading environmental organization the Sierra Club. 12 nations on both sides of the Pacific Ocean negotiated the TPP, including the U.S., Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Vietnam, and more. The comprehensive pact will establish trade, economic, and political policies for approximately 40 percent of the global economy. And the deal is a “docking” agreement, which means other Pacific Rim nations, such as Indonesia and potentially even China, could later join.
An interesting part of the article.
The deal will give foreign corporations the ability to sue governments for implementing environmental policies that do not meet companies’ “expectations” or that could make their investments less profitable.
From an earlier Think Progress article (05/15/2015)
“Creating a corporate bill of rights to protect investors is incredibly undermining to our ability to protect the environment,” Ben Schreiber, the climate and energy program director for Friends of the Earth, told ThinkProgress.
Previous trade deals have, in fact, led to lawsuits over fossil fuels. An American mining company, Lone Pine Resources, sued the Canadian province of Quebec in 2013 for passing a ban on fracking. The company says the ban cost them $250 million and that under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Quebec is liable for the lost revenue. That lawsuit is ongoing.
In another lawsuit, Chevron alleged that Ecuadorian activists had defrauded the company, after it was ordered to pay $18.2 billion in damages for environmental contamination.