The UK’s Climate Change Committee has called for Britain to withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) to stop it from delaying vital climate change action and benefitting fossil fuel companies.
The ECT was founded in the 1990s to protect energy companies working in former Soviet Union countries from government expropriation. But critics claim that the “climate-wrecking” treaty is now outdated.
In the latest report by the Committee, it said: “The UK should announce intent to withdraw from the ECT [as] continued membership represents risks to both a timely climate transition and to the taxpayer.”
The UK and Japan are the only major economies in the treaty not to have committed to exiting. Last week the European Commission formally proposed a “coordinated and orderly” withdrawal from the Energy Charter Treaty for EU countries to quit en mass, cutting membership from 56 to 28 signatories.
Frans Timmermans, the European Commission’s executive vice president in charge of the Green Deal said: “It’s time for Europe to withdraw from this Treaty, and to put all of our focus on building an efficient and competitive energy system that promotes and protects renewable energy investments.”
READ MORE: Abandoning £11.6billion climate and nature pledge would be a ‘shame’
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Trade campaigner at Global Justice Now, Cleodie Rickard, said: “Numerous European countries have committed to leaving, but they’re still discussing the kind of coordinated withdrawal that would neutralise the sunset clause in the treaty and maximise the benefits of leaving. The UK announcing its exit now could really tip the balance.”
Leaving the ECT has a binding 20-year sunset clause applied to existing assets but the Climate Change Committee said: “As momentum gathers behind the ECT exit, departing parties may come together to agree not to apply the sunset clause to each other.”
They added that “a critical mass of exiting parties” would bring “bargaining power”.
A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “The UK has been a strong advocate for modernising the ECT, recognising the need to align it with modern energy priorities, international treaty practice and international commitments on climate change. We continue to monitor developments of the evolving situation.”
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