Environmental Groups Ask USTR for Climate Peace Clause
More than 230 environmental groups sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai asking her to seek climate peace clauses as she talks with the EU, countries participating in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and countries in the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity.
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They said cases at the World Trade Organization challenging domestic content preferences for green technology production threaten the move away from fossil fuels and the fight against global warming.
"After the U.S. successfully challenged India’s national program to boost local solar production, in 2019 India successfully challenged renewable energy programs that included 'buy-local' rules in eight U.S. states," they wrote Aug 8.
"While we greatly appreciate your recent announcement that India and the U.S. will be dropping trade attacks on each other’s renewable energy programs within the World Trade Organization (WTO), we still need a broader and longer-term solution to the ongoing conflict between outdated trade rules and the imperative for ambitious climate action."
They want a "commitment" from the U.S. and its trading partners "to refrain from using dispute settlement mechanisms in international trade agreements to challenge climate mitigation and/or clean energy transition measures."
They noted that the EU has threatened a WTO case against provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that incentivize U.S. or North American production.