Energy & environment
Ecological survival is incompatible with free trade and investment regimes and global capitalism. The neoliberal economic model assumes endless expansion of production and consumption that a planet with finite natural “resources” simply cannot bear. It externalizes environmental costs and targets environmental laws as barriers to free trade or investment. This unfettered export-oriented economic growth model causes environmental degradation, pollution of water and air systems, rapid depletion of forests, wetlands and fisheries, and the extinction of flora and fauna. It advances the privatization, commodification, buying, selling and trading of “natural resources” often expropriated from Indigenous Peoples and other land-based communities.
Provisions of bilateral and regional trade and investment agreements effectively override national environmental policies in developing countries. For example, the US-Central America FTA overrules specific provisions in Costa Rica’s Biodiversity Law, regarding whether or not foreign bioprospectors need to have legal presence in Costa Rica. Many FTAs serve to aggressively liberalize and deregulate "environmental services" as an area of economic activity for foreign investors in developing countries, as in the case of the US-Jordan FTA.
Closely related to environmental concerns and corporate control and exploitation of natural resources is the increasing use of bilateral free trade and investment agreements to secure access to energy resources. For example, countries like China, Japan, the US and the EU — all major promoters of FTAs — are highly dependent on foreign countries for their energy needs. In its FTA with Brunei, which took effect in July 2008, Japan included a chapter on energy, assuring Tokyo a guaranteed supply of oil and gas. The same was achieved under the Japan-Indonesia FTA (which also came into force in July 2008). Negotiations between the EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council are also supposed to allow EU ownership of petrochemical companies in the Gulf states. EU officials also view its free trade agreements as ways to access more agrofuel resources.
last update: May 2012
Articles
-
29-Aug-2012 Reuters Australia scraps carbon floor price, agrees EU link
Australia and the European Commission on Tuesday agreed to link their carbon trading schemes by 2018, allowing Australian companies to buy cheaper EU carbon credits and providing a much-needed boost for the flagging European market. -
29-Aug-2012 La Tribune Les quotas de carbone vont "voyager" entre l’Europe et l’Australie
Les ministres européen et australien en charge du climat ont annoncé ce mardi 28 août leur projet de lier leurs systèmes d’échange de quotas de carbone d’ici à 2018. Une première qui pourrait être suivie d’autres alliances, comme l’espèrent les experts de la lutte contre le changement climatique. -
25-Jul-2012 Youtube Accords commerciaux de l’Union Européen avec l’Amérique centrale, la Colombie et le Pérou : l’eau pour la vie ou pour le commerce ?
L’impact sur l’eau des accords de libre échange de l’Union Européenne -
29-Mar-2012 Policymic Water wars: Indigenous Ecuadorians vs. corporations
Ecuadorian communities learned from the way that Chevron’s operations flouted environmental law in the 1990’s, that once entrusted to foreign businesses their natural resources are usually squandered. -
17-Feb-2012 Amazon Defense Council Chevron’s secret arbitration violates human rights
The Andean Commission of Jurists and five prestigious international law experts from around the world have joined a growing chorus of criticism targeting Chevron’s attempt to use a secret investor arbitration as part of its campaign to evade an $18 billion environmental judgment in Ecuador, according to letters released today. -
7-Nov-2011 Triple Pundit Sustainable Energy Trade Agreements: A fresh, “green” twist on free trade
The International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) is advocating the enactment of Sustainable Energy Trade Agreements to speed up the development and adoption of renewable energy and clean technology globally. -
25-Oct-2011 CCPA Tar sands and the CETA
The recent decision by the European Union (EU) to disregard Canadian government pressure and forge ahead with regulations that recognise the higher green-house-gas intensity of fuel produced from tar sands and oil shale is encouraging -
10-Oct-2011 http://www.acp.int/ ACP Open Day to highlight climate change and economic development
The Second Open Day of the Sustainable Economic Development and Trade Department (SEDT) is scheduled for Tuesday 11 October at the ACP House in Brussels. The one-day event aims to bring together African, Caribbean and Pacific embassies and regional organizations, along with leaders of various Programme Management Units and facilities to exchange information on ways to improve access to these facilities, including funding opportunities. -
30-Aug-2011 Be Your Own Leader Advancing US-Canada economic, energy and security integration
At a news conference following her meeting with Minister Baird, Secretary Clinton stressed that, “it’s critical that we ensure our border remains a safe, vibrant connector of people, trade, and energy." It is interesting that Clinton brought up energy as this is also an intrical part of North American integration which is being further advanced through the U.S.-Canada Clean Energy Dialogue, as well as other initiatives. -
28-Feb-2011 Boundary Sentinel Canada-EU trade deal will hurt climate policy regardless of EU decision on tar sands
The Harper government is using the Canada-European Union trade talks to lobby the EU on its climate policy, according to recently released briefing notes. -
25-Nov-2010 CBS News Living off toxic trash in the Philippines
That Japan has been sending its enormous piles of e-waste to the Philippines is not a revelation, but with the enforcement of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), a wide-ranging bilateral trade agreement, critics fear the Philippines may essentially become Japan’s dumping ground. -
12-Aug-2010 Upside Down World Oil, gas, and Canada-Colombia free trade
Talisman Energy just announced that it will partner with Ecopetrol to purchase all of British Petroleum’s operations in Colombia for a total of CDN$1.9 billion. -
20-Apr-2010 Change.org Will Chevron get away with destroying the Amazon?
Litigation over the ecological disaster that is Lago Agrio has produced a decades-long narrative that rivals Finnegans Wake in complexity. -
12-Mar-2010 BeYourOwnLeader Pacific North American Regional Integration and Control
U.S.-Canadian state and provincial integration is being achieved in areas of transportation, the economy, energy and the environment. With some national, trilateral and global initiatives being discredited, stalled or ineffective, it appears as if the strategy has further shifted to a regional and local level in an effort to lay the groundwork for new agreements. -
10-Mar-2010 IPS Avatar downfall a blow for indigenous communities
In 2009, Chevron’s lobby against the renewal of preferential tariffs for Ecuador was "one of the strongest and fiercest that Ecuadorean foreign policy has ever faced." -
12-Jan-2010 DNA India Free trade agreements may aid toxic-waste trade
As Indian negotiations for signing free trade agreements (FTAs) with trade partners such as Japan and the European Union (EU) gather momentum, so do concerns over environment and waste dumping. -
17-Oct-2009 Guardian US aims for bilateral climate change deals with China and India
Many observers say such bilateral deals risk seriously weakening any Copenhagen agreement by allowing the idea of a global limit on greenhouse gas emissions to be abandoned. -
22-Mar-2009 JapanFocus China, Japan and Indonesia’s LNG Ploys
This article outlines recent developments in Indonesia’s LNG export relationship with both Japan and China. It assess what is driving Indonesian policy in the areas of energy and investment, with particular reference to China. -
3-Feb-2009 TNI Undercutting Africa
Why EPAs threaten the world’s forests and forest peoples -
30-Sep-2008 Radio Mundo Real La UE y su talón de Aquiles
La honda preocupación existente en los gobiernos de los 27 países miembros de la Unión Europea, que por momentos ha alcanzado el paroxismo, en relación a la seguridad energética se anuda como un lazo con la política exterior de Bruselas y su menú de acuerdos comerciales que buscan posicionar efectivamente a las corporaciones procedentes del bloque, en especial las energéticas, en su dominio de los recursos energéticos del sur global
