Reckless trade provisions threaten our climate

New Report: TransCanada's $15 Billion USD Case Reveals Reckless Trade Provisions Trade Rules Empower Corporations To Demand Compensation, Threaten Our Communities and Climate Monday, February 22, 2016 Contact:  Dan Byrnes (202) 495-3039 or daniel.byrnes@sierraclub.org LINK TO REPORT HERE   WASHINGTON, DC / BRUSSELS -- Today, Friends of the Earth Europe, the Sierra Club, and 11 other groups from the European Union, United States, and Canada released “Oil Corporations Vs. Climate: How investors use trade agreements to undermine climate action,” a new report that highlights how TransCanada Corporation is planning to use rules in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to ask a private tribunal to order the U.S. government to pay more than $15 billion of taxpayers’ money as “compensation” for the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline.    The report illustrates the threat of pending trade deals that, if passed, would empower thousands of additional multinational corporations to bypass domestic courts and demand government compensation for environmental and climate protections in unaccountable tribunals. These deals include the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The report is being released as the twelfth round of TTIP negotiations kick off in Brussels, Belgium.   “Despite the U.S. and 194 other nations reaching an historic climate agreement in Paris not three months ago, corporate lobby groups are trying to push members of Congress to support destructive trade deals that would give fossil fuel corporations greater power to challenge our climate protections,” said Courtenay Lewis, one of the report’s authors and the Campaign Representative for the Sierra Club’s Responsible Trade Program. “We’re already seeing just how costly and dangerous reckless trade deals can be for U.S. taxpayers. To solve the climate crisis, we cannot afford more irresponsible trade deals that put the interests of fossil fuel corporations above the health of our communities, the stability of our climate, or the principles of our democracy.”   “Tar sands are a climate killer, and the Obama Administration was right to block Keystone XL,” said Colin Roche, another of the report’s authors and the Extractive Industries Campaigner at  Friends of the Earth Europe. “Trade policy should not be a backdoor for corporations to challenge or dissuade measures to tackle climate change. It’s time to drop investor-state dispute mechanisms in any form, stop harmful trade deals and start taking necessary action to stop climate destruction.”   Organizations that have signed on to the report include: * 350.org * Bold Nebraska * Corporate Europe Observatory * Council of Canadians *  Food & Water Watch * Friends of the Earth Europe * Friends of the Earth U.S. *  Greenpeace * Oil Change International * Powershift * Sierra Club * Transnational Institute * Transport and Environment *   To read the report, click here: sc.org/vIzWn   ###   About the Sierra Club The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 2.4 million members and supporters. In addition to helping people from all backgrounds explore nature and our outdoor heritage, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.   About Friends of the Earth Europe Friends of the Earth Europe campaigns for sustainable and just societies and for the protection of the environment, unites 30 national organisations with thousands of local groups and is part of the world's largest grassroots environmental network, Friends of the Earth International. For further information, see www.foeeurope.org.