Washington, D.C. — Over 1,300 people submitted official comments to the United States Trade Representative (USTR) today urging that U.S.-European Union trade negotiations prioritize ending trade challenges against each other’s clean energy transition and other climate initiatives.
The submission was part of an public comment period on how the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC) Global Trade Challenges Working Group can expand cooperations in a manner mutually beneficial to U.S. and EU stakeholders.
In joint comments, people call for the TTC to take decisive action to prevent outdated trade and investment rules from being used to delay, weaken or derail clean energy and other climate measures in the U.S., EU and elsewhere. Specifically, they called for the U.S. and EU to use upcoming TTC talks to announce a “Climate Peace Clause.”
A Climate Peace Clause is a moratorium on the use of trade and investment rules to attack countries’ climate policies.
Over the years, the United States has lost trade challenges at the World Trade Organization (WTO) against provisions in many of our signature environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act. Before the ink even dried on our most-significant climate law to date — the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — the EU and other trading partners were already threatening to launch trade attacks against it.
Meanwhile, the U.S. included the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in its 2024 National Trade Estimate Report of alleged foreign trade barriers. And both the EU and U.S. have faced additional threats and even formal trade disputes by other nations against a variety of climate measures.
As two of the biggest emitters of climate pollution and, historically, two of the biggest advocates of the trade rules now being used to attack rapid climate action, the U.S. and EU have a special responsibility to end this circular firing squad.
A Climate Peace Clause would reduce the number of trade attacks against existing climate measures; allow parties to consider and adopt new climate measures with less fear of costly trade challenges; and provide the time and incentive needed for parties to work together to rewrite existing trade rules so that they benefit, rather than undermine, the global clean energy transition.
The TTC has already voiced its respect for “the regulatory autonomy of the U.S. and the EU.” Formalizing a Climate Peace Clause is a logical next step towards ending harmful trade threats and trade disputes against one another’s clean energy and climate policies.
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