[CTC] Fwd: Friends of the Earth backgrounder re: ongoing U.S.-EU trade talks in New York City
Adam Weissman
adam at tradejustice.net
Wed Apr 27 16:29:40 PDT 2016
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Friends of the Earth backgrounder re: ongoing U.S.-EU trade
talks in New York City
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2016 21:21:57 +0000
From: Waren, William <WWaren at foe.org>
To: 'Adrian Bebb' <adrian.bebb at foeeurope.org>, 'aterzieva at ciel.org'
<aterzieva at ciel.org>, Adam Weissman <adam at tradejustice.net>, 'Baskut
Tuncak' <btuncak at ciel.org>, 'Bill Snape'
<bsnape at biologicaldiversity.org>, Brent Blackwelder
<brentblackwelder at yahoo.com>, 'Ben Lilliston' <BLilliston at iatp.org>,
'Olsson Bruce' <bolsson at iamaw.org>
https://medium.com/economic-policy/massive-protest-rocks-germany-in-advance-of-u-s-eu-trade-talks-89ee8c229a19#.74z8vbpd0
FOE logo long.jpg
Go to the profile of Friends of the Earth
<https://medium.com/@foe_us>Massive protest rocked Germany in
advance of U.S.-EU trade talks
by Bill Waren <https://twitter.com/wwaren1>, senior trade analyst
Friends of the Earth <https://medium.com/@foe_us>6 mins ago5 min read
https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/2000/1*O5fzfcPW8GjO4I_JWfDorg.jpeg
Photo credit: Jörg Farys, Die Projektoren für Umweltinstitut München
OnSaturday April 23, tens of thousands of demonstrators flooded the
streets and public squares of Hannover, Germany to protest the
environmentally destructive Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership trade deal between the U.S. and the European Union.
Estimates of the size of the crowd ranged from 25,000 to 90,000. The
massive rally was scheduled the day before Obama met with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel in Hanover in a desperate attempt to sell the
TTIP deal and two days before the U.S. and the EU opened weeklong TTIP
negotiations in New York City.
The German public is outraged that a TTIP agreement that would ramp up
U.S. exports to Europe of climate destroying fossil fuel exports[i]
<https://medium.com/economic-policy/massive-protest-rocks-germany-in-advance-of-u-s-eu-trade-talks-89ee8c229a19#_edn1>
and lower alleged regulatory “barriers”
<http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2013-02-friends-of-the-earth-alarmed-by-state-of-the-union-remarks-on-trade>
to transatlantic trade and investment — such as those related to family
farming[ii]
<https://medium.com/economic-policy/massive-protest-rocks-germany-in-advance-of-u-s-eu-trade-talks-89ee8c229a19#_edn2>,
food safety[iii]
<https://medium.com/economic-policy/massive-protest-rocks-germany-in-advance-of-u-s-eu-trade-talks-89ee8c229a19#_edn3>,
genetically-engineered products[iv]
<https://medium.com/economic-policy/massive-protest-rocks-germany-in-advance-of-u-s-eu-trade-talks-89ee8c229a19#_edn4>
and toxic chemicals[v]
<https://medium.com/economic-policy/massive-protest-rocks-germany-in-advance-of-u-s-eu-trade-talks-89ee8c229a19#_edn5>,
among many others.
Ordinary Germans are also angered by an investment chapter in TTIP that
would allow giant multinational firms tosue governments for millions or
billions
<http://www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/foee_factsheet_isds_oct13.pdf>in
money damages if climate, environmental
<http://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/93/56/0/4599/FoEE_TTIP-ISDS-fracking-060314.pdf>
or public health regulations interfere with expected future profits.
This would discourage government action, for just a few examples,
restricting oil and gas drilling, imposing pollution controls, or
limiting the use of hydraulic fracturing.
<http://www.foe.org/news/archives/2014-03-no-fracking-way-new-brief-from-friends-of-the-earth>
As an example of the harm that such investor suit provisions can cause,
TransCanada has sued the U.S. under the North American Free Trade
Agreement for $15 billion
<http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/01/09/transcanada-nafta-keystone-isds_n_8945334.html>
for stopping construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. As a new report
<https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/uploads-wysiwig/climate-roadblocks.pdf>
documents, the TTIP and another looming trade deal, the Trans Pacific
Partnership would more than double the number of fossil fuel
corporations that could follow TransCanada’s lead and use corporate
dominated investment arbitration tribunals as a backdoor way of
challenging U.S. policies that keep fossil fuels in the ground.
https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*fv5c5SlCcaQhTt1IX5r5aA.jpeg
Photo credit: Jorg Fary, Die Projecktoren fur Umweltinstitut Munchen
The TTIP can also be effectively enforced in government to government
litigation before trade tribunals, empowered to impose retaliatory trade
sanctions like higher tariffs on the exports or loss of intellectual
property rights.
To top it off, the TTIP will establish institutions and procedures to
quash environmental initiatives before they can even be promulgated.
Regulatory review chapters in the TTIP would encourage
business-friendly, cost-benefit analysis that would hamstring
environmental or other public interest regulations. For example,
insecticide safety standards would be lowered if the undervalued
“benefit” of protecting the bees is outweighed by the “cost” to
corporate profits.[i]
<https://medium.com/economic-policy/massive-protest-rocks-germany-in-advance-of-u-s-eu-trade-talks-89ee8c229a19#_edn1>
Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and former chief
economist at the World Bank and past chair of the President’s Council of
Economic Advisors, summed up the situation in an opinion piece in the
distinguished German newspaper, Süddeutsche_Zeitung, shortly before the
Obama-Merkel meeting in Hannover:
“German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama
<http://www.sueddeutsche.de/thema/Barack_Obama> [ii]
<https://medium.com/economic-policy/massive-protest-rocks-germany-in-advance-of-u-s-eu-trade-talks-89ee8c229a19#_edn2> …were
instrumental in securing the Paris Agreement on climate change. Yet in
Hannover they are poised to undermine their joint climate legacy by
pushing forward the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
(TTIP). Together with its sibling, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),
TTIP <http://www.sueddeutsche.de/thema/TTIP> has the potential to
undercut urgently needed action on climate that the Paris agreement
requires.”[iii]
<https://medium.com/economic-policy/massive-protest-rocks-germany-in-advance-of-u-s-eu-trade-talks-89ee8c229a19#_edn3>
https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*jrpb_SrGITrD36a2S3-4jA.jpeg
Photo credit: Jorg Fary, Die Projecktoren fur Umweltinstitut Munchen
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes
[i] wwaren at foe.org <mailto:wwaren at foe.org>; 202.222.0746.
[ii] The TTIP would stimulate a boom in oil, coal, and liquefied natural
gas exports
<http://www.foe.org/news/archives/2012-11-control-fossil-fuel-exports-part-1>
from the US to Europe, thus further fueling climate change
<http://www.foe.org/news/blog/2013-05-chevron-fracks-europe-transatlantic-trade--investmen>.
The TTIP would trump the recently-concluded Paris accord on climate
change. It can be effectively enforced by international tribunals with
authority to levy retaliatory trade sanctions or unlimited awards of
money damages whereas multilateral environmental and climate agreements
like the Paris accord are mere moral obligations. A leaked draft
negotiating text <http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/TTIPNonPaper.pdf>
for the E.U. on energy issues was published online. An analysis
<http://action.sierraclub.org/site/DocServer/Analysis_of_EU_Energy_Proposal_for_TTIP-Final_-_Sierra_C.pdf?docID=15781>
of the leaked text shows that the draft European proposal for TTIP
energy provisions would “expand fossil fuel exports from the U.S. to the
EU.”
[iii] Friends of the Earth, TTIP bad for agriculture, health and the
environment says U.S. and EU civil society, July 10, 2014:
http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2014-07-ttip-bad-for-agriculture-health-and-the-environment#sthash.8kbLbhGh.dpuf
[iv] Industry lobbyists have called for TTIP provisions that would make
it much easier to challenge safeguards
<http://www.foe.org/news/archives/2013-04-free-trade-in-frankenfish-trans-atlantic-free-trade>
related tofood safety
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-kucinich/ttip-a-race-to-the-top-or_b_3375737.html>and
animal health. European firms are seeking to relax U.S. regulatory
safeguards related to mad cow disease. But U.S. agri-business has even
more ambitious plans to lower food safety standards
<http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/files/tafta-food-factsheet_30298.pdf>
in Europe, seeking to deregulate EU restrictions on imports of beef
treated with growth hormones, chicken washed in chlorine and meat
produced with growth stimulants, among others.
[v] TTIP could open the door for U.S. exports of genetically engineered
goods
<http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2013/12/monsantos-plan-b-a-backdoor-to-genetically-modified-food.html>
into Europe, where market access is currently restricted — or at least
labeling is required — because of safety concerns
<http://www.foe.org/projects/food-and-technology/synthetic-biology>.
This could threaten <http://www.citizen.org/documents/GMObackgrndr.pdf>
ecosystems, public health and the livelihoods of small farmers
<http://www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/foee_iatp_factsheet_ttip_food_oct13.pdf>,
among other adverse consequences
<http://www.foe.org/projects/food-and-technology/genetic-engineering>.
[vi] TTIP poses risks to the EU’s health-protective approach to chemical
regulation
<http://www.foe.org/news/blog/2013-06-sinister-partners-transatlantic-trade-agreement--tox>,
called REACH
<http://www.indiana.edu/%7Espea/faculty/pdf/REACH_report.pdf>. If the
American Chemistry Council gets its way, the TTIP process
<http://www.ciel.org/Chem/TTIP_10Mar2014.html> could “harmonize down”
European chemical regulations
<http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/internal_market/single_market_for_goods/chemical_products/l21282_en.htm>
so that they approach low federal standards
<http://static.ewg.org/pdf/Combined-CSIA-Letters-2013.pdf> in the U.S.,
namely the failed Toxic Substances Control Act
<http://www.ewg.org/news/news-releases/2009/02/26/house-hearing-examine-case-tsca-reform>.
In coming years, this could also prevent comprehensive reform of federal
chemicals regulation, resulting in weaker rules for chemicals associated
with breast cancer, autism and infertility. More immediately, it would
undercut more effective toxic chemical regulation currently on the books
in California
<http://www.sacbee.com/2013/10/17/5827527/viewpoints-legislation-could-hurt.html>
and other states.
[vii] Bill Waren, Assessment: Trade deal attack on pollinator
protection, Friends of the Earth, 10/21/2015,
http://webiva-downton.s3.amazonaws.com/877/58/2/6702/Assessment.Trade_deal_attack_on_pollinator_protection.pdf.
[viii] The Paris agreement acknowledges the urgent need to keep global
warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to avoid
catastrophic climate change, but the greenhouse gas pollution-cutting
pledges of signatory countries fall critically short
<http://civilsocietyreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/CSO_FullReport.pdf>of
meeting this critical target. The U.S. has played a major role in the
agreement’s inadequacy. It has refused to do its fair share
<http://www.climatefairshares.org/methodology> and take responsibility
for the country’s historical contribution to today’s global climate
emergency. Instead, the U.S. has unjustly shifted this burden to the
developing countries in the Global South and has failed to provide its
fair share of financial support to enable developing countries to take
meaningful climate action. To fight the climate crisis, the U.S. must
keep fossil fuels in the ground, undertake a clean energy revolution,
and provide the Global South with the financial and technological
assistance demanded by science, equity, and justice.
http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2016-04-obama-administration-urged-to-do-fair-share-to-fight-climate-crisis#sthash.tZH3GiXK.dpuf.
[ix] Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor, Columbia University,
recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and
the John Bates Clark Medal (1979), former senior vice president and
chief economist of the World Bank and a former chairman of the (US
president’s) Council of Economic Advisers, TTIP and Climate Change: A
Tale of Two Cities from Paris to Hannover, Süddeutsche_Zeitung, 23.
April 2016,
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/exterior-view-ttip-and-climate-change-a-tale-of-two-cities-from-paris-to-hannover-1.2963133.
---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20160427/6693db20/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 7094 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20160427/6693db20/attachment-0004.jpeg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 1271 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20160427/6693db20/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 91775 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20160427/6693db20/attachment-0005.jpeg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 95983 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20160427/6693db20/attachment-0006.jpeg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 112531 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20160427/6693db20/attachment-0007.jpeg>
More information about the CTCField
mailing list