• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BREAKING: Iron & Earth Lands $16M to Help Fossil Fuel Workers Enter Net-Zero Jobs June 7, 2023
UN Climate Delegates Haggle Over Agenda as CO2 Levels Set New Record June 6, 2023
Rich Countries Overstate Their Climate Finance Contributions, Oxfam Warns June 6, 2023
Renewables ‘Set to Soar’ with 440 GW of New Installations in 2023: IEA June 4, 2023
Greek Industrial Giant Announces 1.4-GW Alberta Solar Farm, Canada’s Biggest June 4, 2023
Next
Prev

Expert Traces Trade Agreements’ ‘Profound’ Impact on Climate

March 9, 2022
Reading time: 3 minutes

Karsten Wachtmann/Pixabay

Karsten Wachtmann/Pixabay

15
SHARES
 

As a Canadian expert urges governments to address the climate impacts of their trade and investment policies in light of a grim report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a small shift is already under way in the United States, with Republicans extolling the benefits of carbon border adjustments to thwart Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The latest [IPCC] report signals that behavioural changes are required throughout society—from individuals and communities, to institutions and governments,” writes international environmental law expert Sabaa Khan, the David Suzuki Foundation’s director general for Quebec and Atlantic Canada, in a post for Policy Options. “But it’s clear that, above all, governments must assume with far greater urgency their shared responsibility to set the parameters of the global economy to enable everyone to adopt more climate-sensitive lifestyles and ensure global inequalities don’t worsen.”

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
Subscribe

The recent “atlas of human suffering” released by the IPCC urgently calls for accelerating climate action to prevent ecosystems and human societies from collapsing. Governments should lead the charge towards these transformational changes by acknowledging “the profound impact of their trade and investment policies on climate change, and reverse longstanding patterns of deep incoherence between our climate policy objectives and the emissions-intensive trajectories of the global economy,” Khan says.

Governments will need to reorient multilateral and bilateral agreements towards achieving climate objectives to successfully overhaul global industrial production and consumption patterns. But so far, high-emitting countries like the U.S. and Canada are holding fast to neo-liberal free trade policies that continue to increase global health inequities and worsen climate and other environmental crises, writes Khan.

For example, only days after touting its climate commitments at last year’s COP 26 climate summit, Canada—one of the largest per-capita greenhouse gas emitters and exporters of fossil fuels—opened negotiations with member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for a comprehensive free trade agreement that held no mention of climate change.

The U.S. has also been notably resistant to climate policies that compromise its free trade principles, but some Republican politicians are now indicating support for leveraging carbon border fees in their strategy with European Union member states to pressure Russia into withdrawing from its invasion of Ukraine, reports the Washington Post.

“People expect us or want us to deal with climate, but it’s not a natural thing for conservative Republicans to talk about,” said Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) regarding his recent opinion article about using climate policy to counter Russia’s energy dominance, written with former national security advisor H.R. McMaster. “Here is an ‘America First’ solution that reduces emissions in a realistic way and has the additional advantage of freezing out Vladimir Putin.”

While the U.S. issued a ban on all Russian oil and gas imports Tuesday, EU member states that are more dependent on Russian oil had been more hesitant until yesterday, when they announced a plan to cut their demand for Russian gas by 65% this year and phase out all Russian fossil fuels “well before” 2030. Cramer and McMaster argue that pursuing carbon border fees would not only align with European priorities but also counter Putin’s advantage.

“It is time to correct the mistakes of the past and prevent state-controlled, mercantilist economies from continuing to ignore environmental, labour, and human rights standards to gain an unfair competitive advantage,” they write in Foreign Policy.

Neither Cramer nor McMaster supports a domestic price on carbon pollution, which is needed for “border adjustment to work the way they intend,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

Still, a shift is happening, said Heather Reams, president of the right-leaning Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, who described herself to the Post “as a long-time observer of how climate policy and politics evolve on the right.”



in Asia, Canada, Coal, Ending Emissions, Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics, Energy Politics, International Security & War, Legal & Regulatory, Oil & Gas, Supply Chains & Consumption, UK & Europe, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

RenuWell/YouTube
Jobs & Training

BREAKING: Iron & Earth Lands $16M to Help Fossil Fuel Workers Enter Net-Zero Jobs

June 7, 2023
352
IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin/Twitter
COP Conferences

UN Climate Delegates Haggle Over Agenda as CO2 Levels Set New Record

June 6, 2023
84
IRIN Photos/flickr
Finance & Investment

Rich Countries Overstate Their Climate Finance Contributions, Oxfam Warns

June 6, 2023
45

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

RenuWell/YouTube

BREAKING: Iron & Earth Lands $16M to Help Fossil Fuel Workers Enter Net-Zero Jobs

June 7, 2023
352
Natural Resources Canada

2.7M Hectares Lost, Nova Scotia at Ground Zero in ‘Unprecedented’ Early Wildfire Season

June 4, 2023
450
YouTube

‘Counterproductive Nitwittery’: Mr. Bean Schooled on EVs After Erroneous Op-Ed

June 7, 2023
148
Sask Power/flickr

Don’t Waste $15B Growth Fund on Carbon Capture, Experts Warn Ottawa

June 7, 2023
147
Inspiration 4 Photos/flickr

Cooling Upper Atmosphere Has Scientists ‘Very Worried’

May 23, 2023
626
/MaxPixels

‘Substantial Damage’, No Injuries as Freight Train Hits Wind Turbine Blade

June 7, 2023
14.8k

Recent Posts

IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin/Twitter

UN Climate Delegates Haggle Over Agenda as CO2 Levels Set New Record

June 6, 2023
84
IRIN Photos/flickr

Rich Countries Overstate Their Climate Finance Contributions, Oxfam Warns

June 6, 2023
45
Ecig Click/flickr

Wasted Batteries in Disposable Vapes Could Power 6,000 EVs Per Year

June 6, 2023
49
Ottawa Renewable Energy Co-op/Facebook

‘Hinge Moment’ for Humanity Demands ‘YIMBY’ Mentality: McKibben

June 6, 2023
148
Hans/Pixabay

Plastics Treaty Negotiators Aim for Draft Deal by November

June 6, 2023
36
sunrise windmill

Renewables ‘Set to Soar’ with 440 GW of New Installations in 2023: IEA

June 5, 2023
245
Next Post
bykst / Pixabay

Canada Reports ‘Significant Impacts’ from Energy Efficiency

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}