Why Fast-Track Trade Deals, But Not Climate Agreements?

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/12/04/why-fast-track-trade-deals-not-climate-agreements

But as the conference opens, I cannot help thinking that, while countries rush to sign trade deals such as CETA and the new Trans-Pacific Partnership, they cannot seem to get a binding climate change agreement. Very little at the UN or in previous climate conferences has been binding. But somehow, for trade agreements, this doesn't seem to happen. Countries pull all their resources into them, rushing around the world from Maui to Atlanta to Guam, desperate for agreements that gives corporations more rights. Provisions for the environment, human rights and labour rights may be not be enforceable, and we may never be able to control tax shelters or regulate global financial markets. However, trade agreements allow corporations to have binding rights through the Investor State Dispute Settlement process, involving a private arbitration process that allows corporations to sue states over laws or decisions that get in the way of profits. The message is: you have a right to profits but no rights to clean air or a decent wage, no rights to have clean drinking water.

CETA and TPP are both major trade deals that must be fought. They matter because they set the new rules for the next corporate century. They take power away from elected parliaments and into the hands of corporations. They deregulate our social standards. They encourage unsustainable large-scale farming. They add to our pharmaceutical costs. And much more. Hashed out in secret between trade lawyers and lobbyists, these trade agreements have little to do with "eliminating trade barriers" and increasing trade and much to do with carving up the world between different national and corporate interests. But surely TPP is more important than CETA? The list of TPP countries with low wages and low social standards is certainly cause for alarm. But as Maude Barlow says, just because the EU seems "cool" and their standards seem higher than ours doesn't mean we're going to get a better trade deal. It is the same process, with corporations on both sides of the Atlantic getting their way. European companies would love to get their hands on our mainly public municipal services, which could be run by private companies with the motive trumping public service. Our petroleum companies have done their part to lower environmental standards in Europe and to seek potential energy markets, at the expense of advanced European environmental policies. In other words, it is a race to the bottom for us all.