The TPP is a climate-busting trade agreement that will devastate communities. Many provisions will accelerate the export of fracked oil and gas, tar sands, and coal to Pacific Rim countries, and increase logging and mining. In Pacific Rim countries, the destruction of forests and needed agricultural land will continue for production of bio-fuels used for carbon credits – a false solution to the climate crisis.
With increased off-shore manufacturing in countries that use low-cost sweatshop and slave labor, use unsustainable dirty carbon fuels and have lax enforcement of environmental laws, air and sea transport around the Pacific Rim will accelerate adding to the carbon-footprint of the imported consumer goods.
Increased carbon and increased climate chaos means increased costs to taxpayers as local and state governments try to plan for and mitigate global warming and extreme weather impacts. Increased fires, floods, violent storms, hurricanes and tornadoes have both the huge economic cost for emergency response, relief services and rebuilding, and the personal cost when property and lives are lost and communities are torn asunder.
The TPP includes the same Investor-to-State (ISDS) rules as NAFTA, CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Agreement), and hundreds of other bi-lateral trade agreements. ISDS rules allow foreign corporations to sue signatory governments in secret trade tribunals, bypassing national courts. These rules allow for foreign corporations to challenge local, state and federal environmental and health laws to protect our air, land and water as a “regulatory taking” of expected future profits. Multinationals have attacked natural resource policies, environmental protections, health and safety regulations and more.
Significantly, one-half of new ISDS cases in 2014 were by oil, gas, mining or power generation corporation and against countries, such as Canada and Germany, trying to set policy to transition away from fracking or nuclear energy to a sustainable, clean energy and economy. The TPP will give 9,000 corporations in the 11 TPP countries the right to sue the U.S. and 19,000 U.S. corporations the same right in those countries. This is important because, for example, BHP Billiton, the largest Australian energy corporations, has many fracking operations in the U.S. and the Pacific Rim countries that are so vulnerable to extreme weather and rising seas will be discouraged from transitioning to cleaner energy.
