energy, trade and climate change
damian sullivan, friends of the earth
australia
|
WTO negotiations and regional
trade agreements are increasingly
affecting people's access to and
control over energy. Energy underpins
our economies, and its costs affect
our ability to cook, keep ourselves
warm and travel. However, energy is
also used wastefully, and our
ever-increasing demand for it is
causing dangerous global warming
which will affect all of our
lives.
Transnational corporations make
vast profits from energy - three of
Forbes magazine's top ten
corporations – Shell, Exxon and BP -
are energy companies. These
corporations want to increase their
profits by reducing the control
governments have over energy
policies, and trade and investment
liberalization agreements help them
to do this.
calls for energy sovereignty
Fortunately, there is a growing
alternative voice: people's movements
around the world are calling for
‘energy sovereignty', and focusing on
how we can develop energy in the
interests of people and the
environment. Technological
improvements alone cannot provide a
solution. The international Oilwatch
network, for example, sees energy
sovereignty as a means for people to
regain control over energy sources.
They promote alternative energy
technologies that contribute to the
construction of sustainable social
alternatives and more democratic
societies, and generate forms of
energy use that will keep people and
the planet healthy .
|
nama: removing standards and
labeling
One corporate tool for reducing
government intervention in energy markets
is the WTO's Non-Agriculture Market Access
agreement (NAMA, see page 7). NAMA could be
used to reduce governments' ability to
implement a whole host of energy reduction
measures, including energy standards and
labeling schemes, which some countries have
listed as non-tariff barriers to trade
under WTO rules. It has also been proposed
that NAMA be used to reduce tariffs in the
energy sector, potentially decreasing
prices and increasing consumption.
Friends of the Earth International has
identified 212 instances of national
legislation that have been ‘notified' as
obstructions to trade during negotiations
for the NAMA agreement. It is unclear
whether all these notifications are still
on the table, but as the NAMA negotiations
are formally intended to reduce or
eliminate non-tariff barriers, many of them
could remain in place. Additionally, the
range of measures initially notified
provides startling evidence of the ways in
which governments intend to use the WTO to
challenge environmental standards and
labeling. For example, mandatory labeling
for electric home appliances including for
energy efficiency has been notified, as
have fines when fuel efficiency in imported
cars does not meet manufacturers' corporate
average fuel efficiency.
trade agreements as barriers to action
on climate change
There is clear scientific consensus that
climate change is occurring, and it is one
of the most serious environmental threats
facing the planet today. The fundamental
issue governments face is how to reduce
emissions while limiting damage and
protecting the poor and marginalized, who
will bear the brunt of the impacts. Trade
agreements and institutions such as the WTO
have the very real potential to undermine
both national and international action to
address climate change by restricting
government actions, even those legitimately
designed to limit emissions.
At a national level, trade agreements
could limit the policy space governments
have to reduce national greenhouse gas
emissions, for example by limiting the use
of policies designed to promote sustainable
domestic industries by subsidizing them or
ensuring local content. Trade agreements
could also force governments to abandon
laws or regulations (or limit the
development of new laws) designed to reduce
dependence on fossil fuels. Finally, trade
agreements could lead to increased trade
and consumption of fossil fuel resources as
tariffs are decreased in energy intensive
sectors, such as aluminum (which has been
proposed for complete liberalization in the
NAMA negotiations).
Internationally, trade agreements could
take precedence over environmental
protection, for example in disputes between
the Kyoto Climate Protocol and the WTO.
Saudi Arabia has already foreshadowed a
challenge to the Climate Convention using
the WTO. Trade agreements may also define
the way in which emissions trading schemes
work by restricting discrimination between
types of emission units and stopping
efforts to support small domestic
enterprises during the allocation of
emission units.
More fundamentally, the international
trade system and the WTO in particular
support a global economic system that is
dependent on fossil fuels and is
fundamentally inequitable and
unsustainable. As the New Economics
Foundation states, “Wealthy countries, even
with the benefit of ‘efficient' information
and computer technologies, have failed to
make the transition to ‘weightless
economies.' On the contrary, they are
increasingly heavy, dependent on fossil
fuels, polluting and – per person –
generating carbon dioxide at many times the
sustainable rate. Furthermore,
international trade fails, even in
conventional economic terms, to bring human
development to the world's poorest
countries. Maximizing trade for its own
sake sets us on a collision course with the
limits of social and environmental
tolerance.”
