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Earth

Energy Charter Treaty Makes Climate Action Nearly Illegal In 52 Countries (theconversation.com) 97

Posted by BeauHD from the climate-crisis dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Conversation: Five young people whose resolve was hardened by floods and wildfires recently took their governments to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Their claim concerns each country's membership of an obscure treaty they argue makes climate action impossible by protecting fossil fuel investors. The energy charter treaty has 52 signatory countries which are mostly EU states but include the UK and Japan. The claimants are suing 12 of them including France, Germany and the UK -- all countries in which energy companies are using the treaty to sue governments over policies that interfere with fossil fuel extraction. For example, the German company RWE is suing the Netherlands for 1.4 billion euros because it plans to phase out coal. The claimants aim to force their countries to exit the treaty and are supported by the Global Legal Action Network, a campaign group with an ongoing case against 33 European countries they accuse of delaying action on climate change. The prospects for the current application going to a hearing at the ECHR look good. But how simple is it to prize countries from the influence of this treaty?

The energy charter treaty started as an EU agreement in 1991 which guaranteed legal safeguards for companies invested in energy projects such as offshore oil rigs. Under Article 10 (1) of the treaty, these investments must "enjoy the most constant protection and security." If government policies change in order to curtail these projects, such as Italy's 2019 decision to ban drilling for oil and gas within 12 miles of its coast, the government is obliged to compensate the relevant company for its lost future earnings. The legal mechanism which allows this is known as an investor-state dispute settlement. A letter to EU leaders signed by 76 climate scientists (PDF) argues this could keep coal power plants open or force governments into paying punishing fees for shutting them down, at a time when deep and rapid cuts to emissions are desperately needed.

Money spent compensating fossil fuel investors will deprive investment in renewable energy and other things vital to the green transition, such as public transport. While withdrawing from the energy charter treaty is possible for any country to do, losing the benefits of membership -- such as fewer duties and taxes on imports of oil and gas -- will make it a difficult decision. Furthermore, the obligations of countries that have been signatories to the treaty are not nullified upon exiting it, but instead linger for 20 years thereafter. Investors can still bring disputes against former members and, if successful, must be compensated by the state in question. Russia and Italy withdrew from the energy charter treaty in 2009 and 2016 respectively, and continue to face multiple claims.
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Energy Charter Treaty Makes Climate Action Nearly Illegal In 52 Countries More

Energy Charter Treaty Makes Climate Action Nearly Illegal In 52 Countries

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  • > Money spent compensating fossil fuel investors will deprive investment in renewable energy and other things vital to the green transition

    Not obvious. What would prevent these investors from investing the compensation money into renewable etc. it it makes more economical sense?

    • The time horizon, risk and necessity of generation makes it inherently a public work ... the private part is just for show and corruption. Government fronts the money, the private investors just leech. If they leeches bleed government dry, then there is nothing to invest.

      • NWO Cucks (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Let's drive Diesel Fuel up to $40/lt so we can have mass starvation and "build back better."

        What part of that do you idiots not understand?

        • Build Back Better is a USA program. The USA is not a signatory of the Energy Charter Treaty.

          What part of "the USA isn't the place on earth" do you not understand?

          • He understands that, but realizes (and hoping you will too someday) that American exports dont end with IP and tech. We export policies and sentiments too, as well as global initiatives. Europes energy problem (and ours in the US) did not start with a war in Ukraine. They got worse, surely. But that isnt where they started. The last guy had the US as an energy exporter in petrochemicals, but this guys policies dont support that. So, here we are with energy problems because the unspoken dogma on the left is:
            • Last guy was exporting DURING THE PLAGUE when lack of market set oil price below breakeven for frackers. NOW you know what is wrong with oil. Trump.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sjames ( 1099 )

              Nonsense. What we have here is gouging and a money grab from finance. The price of crude is coming down. It has been higher in the past decades than it went this time. Oil production isn't the bottleneck and it isn't the reason fuel prices shot up.

              • Most of it is refining capacity. You can blame one city on why we have a limited amount of refining capacity in the country: Washington DC. If the permits were allowed and competition could drive the price down, we would have a whole different ball game. Those lucky enough to have build refineries when permits to do so were a thing, are lucky. They get to gouge the rest of us. It is kinda sorta like protectionism.
                • I suspect there will never be a new refinery built in North America ever again.

                  https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]

                  After the ones in progress are completed there will probably never be another pipeline built either.

                  And you will be forced to like it

                • Re: (Score:3)

                  by sjames ( 1099 )

                  The owners of the existing refineries are dragging their feet getting them running at rated capacity (no permit required).

          • Build Back Better is a USA program. The USA is not a signatory of the Energy Charter Treaty. What part of "the USA isn't the place on earth" do you not understand?
            You're are technically correct my autistic friend, outside of the US the program was instead billed as "the great reset" with much the same ideas as making ICE vehicles prohibitively expensive, never mind how one grows food without fertilizer made from nat gas. But the greenies aren't about solutions just slogans and bad ideas.
        • Easy. No part of oil prices worldwide were or are controlled by Biden. Quit spewing propaganda from Faux Noise
      • That's the thing. No company is going to build a coal power plant that needs to run 20-30 years to pay for itself, if the government might shut down all coal plants in a few years. That is the reason for this compensation: the government makes a long-term commitment to buy power (or lets private suppliers make that commitment), then changes the rules to make operation of the plant impossible. If it were run as a utility, the public would lose out just the same: they would have paid for a 30 year plant th
        • You've never heard of the term grift have you....

        • And it's been over 30 years since this charter. What's the cutoff date? If none, was the charter was intended to last for all eternity? Best to just renegotiate when needed.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tepples ( 727027 )

            According to the summary, any country can set a cutoff date with twenty years of advance notice.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          Coal has already proven to be a bad idea for new investments, it's already failing as an investment without any direct government action.

          • Coal has already proven to be a bad idea for new investments, it's already failing as an investment without any direct government action.

            Not in the third world it's not. It's only failing there because of government action. Mostly foreign governments of course, as is usual throughout history.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They need to buy new electric yachts.

    • > What would prevent these investors from investing
      > the compensation money into renewable etc. it it
      > makes more economical sense?

      The fact that they are the sort of people who happily support the fossil fuel industry... even knowing how corrupt and loathsome and wantonly destructive it is... in the first place?

      • The fact that they are the sort of people who happily support the fossil fuel industry... even knowing how corrupt and loathsome and wantonly destructive it is... in the first place?

        I heat my home (in this very cold Canadian province) and fuel my car thanks to the fossil fuel industry. Plane loads, train loads, and truck loads of goods are available to me thanks to them. Of course I support them. Life would suck big time if they disappeared.

      • You are making the mistake of thinking they actually love fossil fuels. They don't. They love money, or power, and they would happily abandon the industry if renewables could do the same for them.

  • Simple solution, just ignore it (Score:3)

    by Pinky's Brain ( 1158667 ) on Friday July 08, 2022 @09:34AM (#62684070)

    EU arbitration courts have thrown in the towel, for a lot a of pretend reasons ... but the real reason is because no one is going to pick up the tab any more and they are a business ("loser" pays, except the "loser" just ignores them and the EU isn't enforcing the ECT).

    Unless these investors can find some US court to claim jurisdiction the ECT is irrelevant if the country just plain ignores it.

    • That's the thing about sovereignty... a sovereign is only bound by the laws they choose to be bound by. Any sovereign nation can say "Nah, fuck it" anytime and junk any treaty it chooses.

      International politics are complicated, and few nations will break a treaty if it means pissing off allied nations, but when allied nations also want to end the treaty it's an easy call to make. The easiest way out would be to make an agreement at the EU level (as most signatories are EU members) that the treaty has been

  • If you don't like to see coal power plants being built, or suing for lost profits for being forced to close, then put them out of business the old fashioned way, offer a better product at a lower price.

    The stone age didn't end for a lack of rocks. The age of sail didn't end because of a sail shortage. People found something better.

    We saw the European Union recently declare natural gas and nuclear fission as "green" energy sources. I'm sure that upset a great many people but if all they have for "green" e

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 )

      If you don't like to see coal power plants being built, or suing for lost profits for being forced to close, then put them out of business the old fashioned way

      What part of

      the German company RWE is suing the Netherlands for 1.4 billion euros because it plans to phase out coal

      did you not understand?

    • Re:Put them out of business the old fashioned way (Score:5, Funny)

      by splutty ( 43475 ) on Friday July 08, 2022 @10:04AM (#62684166)

      Oh. It's you. I was starting to write a reply, but that's kind of pointless.

    • Re:Put them out of business the old fashioned way (Score:5, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday July 08, 2022 @10:10AM (#62684178) Homepage Journal

      Nuclear in Europe just entered a new crisis as EDF, the only company building nuclear plants, was nationalized by the French government.

      Nearly bankrupted by its failing nuclear power ventures, and already reliant on the French government to keep it afloat, EDF is now property of France: https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]

      EDF has big problems. Massive debt from due to delays and over-runs on new plants, while half its old reactors are offline due to EOL problems like corrosion. EDF's debt is expected to increase by 40% this year to over 60 billion Euros.

      It's other major problem is that the French government wants to keep energy prices low for consumers, and nuclear energy isn't cheap. EDF is losing money fast.

      Besides which EDF is quoting 20 years for new nuclear plants. Even if we decided to throw good money after bad, 20 years is too long to wait for solutions.

      • Re:Put them out of business the old fashioned way (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ZiggyZiggyZig ( 5490070 ) on Friday July 08, 2022 @10:32AM (#62684246)

        It's other major problem is that the French government wants to keep energy prices low for consumers, and nuclear energy isn't cheap. EDF is losing money fast.

        Yes, that's the final nail in EDF's coffin. To be more precise, the government forced EDF to wholesale electricity at a loss to its competitors so that *they* could maintain low prices. Because yes, the electricity private sector does not actually produce any electricity here in France, they buy it from EDF, and sell it to consumers. Those companies bring no added value whatsoever, they don't manage powerplants, they don't invest into the future. They buy electricity from EDF, and they sell it. Is private competition always better than a national company? What do those guys do apart from adding a layer of salesmen to the party?

        EDF used to be profitable *before* it was transformed into a private entity. The bulk of the nuclear powerplants were built when EDF was a national company. It had sound finances. Once it was privatized, they basically started underinvesting in maintenance of the plants and they stopped making proper long-term investments in new plants, so as to generate more immediate profit for the shareholders. Now it has amassed massive debt (because private management is so much better and more efficient!) and the government is nationalizing it - a classical example of "privatize the profits, nationalize the debts." At the end of the day, we (the taxpayers) are going to repay the debt. Wealth doesn't trickle down, it trickles up.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The deal was supposed to be that nuclear would be too cheap to meter. Turned out to be insanely expensive but by that point the government had already invested heavily in it, so the French taxpayer wasn't about to just accept high prices.

          • The deal was supposed to be that nuclear would be too cheap to meter.

            AFAIK that remark only traces back to Lewis Strauss - a one time Naval officer and right-wing financier who was chairman of the US AEC for five years in the 1950s, before any commercial nuclear power plants were built. Strauss had no technical credentials and devoted much of his efforts to political purges, and the claim was purely a PR slogan with nothing to back it up.

    • Re:Put them out of business the old fashioned way (Score:5, Informative)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday July 08, 2022 @10:16AM (#62684196) Homepage Journal

      Solar and wind are both much, much, much cheaper than nuclear.

      https://assets.publishing.serv... [service.gov.uk]

      That report from the UK government is a couple of years old, but shows solar and wind coming in at less than half the cost of nuclear power (not shown, but compare to the guaranteed price the brand new Hinkley Point C reactor gets, currently £130/MWh and rising with inflation, plus the massive subsidy indirect costs).

      In fact as you can see from that document (page 25) solar and wind are even cheaper than gas.

      Even if we say the cost doubles to add in some storage, it's *still* cheaper than nuclear.

      • PV doesn't need some storage, it needs PetaWh storage. Realistically only underground hydrogen storage can do it, round trip efficiency be damned.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          We have been seeing demand following the availability of cheap energy for a couple of decades now. Big consumers are not dumb, they adjust their businesses to make use of cheap energy where possible.

          As the technology develops we are seeing that more and more on the consumer side too.

          • European consumers are getting forced into it, but being able to heat your home in winter is a really desirable comfort.

            • Europeans consumers will not be forced to heat their homes to any substantial extent because of the 2010 and 2012 EU energy efficiency directives which have applied to all buildings built post-2020.

              • Not to mention that most of the EU only experiences sub zero C for a few weeks per year.

                Combine good building codes, modest heat requirements, and a rapid shift to renewable energy in various forms, I, a European resident, don't worry very much.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by vakuona ( 788200 )

                Homes built post-2020? I wasn't aware that Europeans were in the middle of demolishing their existing houses to build new energy efficient housing stock?

                • It's the same thing as replacing the car fleets. "The grid won't be able to handle all those BEVs charging at once!!!!" is such a bullshit argument when it may take a decade and a half for all the ICE vehicles to be progressively replaced. Old houses get progressively torn down or renovated, too, you see?
        • That's a spurious argument since you will need to produce synthetic hydrogen no matter what -- globally in amounts equivalent at least to ~500GW of electricity generation (~20% of current global electricity generation) for ammonia alone.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Kant ( 67320 )
          PV needs electrical wires to move electrons from sunlit areas to areas in darkness!

          Then you need an algorithm to balance the world's power grid, but that will be given to mankind by Mr Musk.

      • If you want to use the United Kingdom as an example then consider the available land for wind and solar. This was figured out a long time ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/0... [nytimes.com]

        Dr. MacKay wrote a book on the problem, available for free on the internet: http://www.withouthotair.com/ [withouthotair.com]

        UK can't produce the energy it needs from wind, water, and sun. That means they need nuclear fission and/or fossil fuels. You can make an argument that nuclear power costs more than wind and solar but that only holds until deman

        • UK can't produce the energy it needs from wind, water, and sun.

          Apparently, when it comes to offshore wind power alone, "the United Kingdom has been estimated to have over a third of Europe's total offshore wind resource, which is equivalent to three times the electricity needs of the nation at current rates of electricity consumption" [wikipedia.org]. I'm not quite sure how triple the current power generation just from offshore wind potential alone translates to outright impossibility. There may be some cost obstacles to some offshore installations when it comes to creating a cost-opt

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Budenny ( 888916 )

            They are not the same product.

            An unpredictably intermittent supply with periodic two week outages (wind) is not the same as a supply which is regular and only has scheduled downtime.

            A supply which only delivers during daylight, and delivers only a fraction of the summer output during winter days, when the days are anyway much shorter, is not the same as a supply which delivers 24 x 7 regardless of weather or time of year.

            Add to the costs of wind and solar enough storage or backup to make their product deliv

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Ichijo ( 607641 )

              An unpredictably intermittent supply with periodic two week outages (wind)

              Can supply baseload power [ametsoc.org] even during heat waves when nuclear plants are forced to shut down due to insufficient cooling [slashdot.org].

            • You're shifting the goalposts. You initially claimed "can't produce the energy", NOT "storing the energy would be expensive".

              The UK Net Zero proposal is essentially to convert all transport to EVs and home heating to heat pumps, while, at the same time, converting the electricity grid to wind and solar. This is doubling demand

              I doubt that. Unless UK backs off of the 2010 and 2012 EU directives' standards, heating energy will definitely shrink a lot. Likewise, electrification of transportation hardly doubles electricity consumption. For example in my country it would at worst increase power consumption by around 15%.

              • Oops, sorry. different user. Nevertheless it's still shifting-goalposts-by-proxy.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Budenny ( 888916 )

                The problem with intermittency is that it forces a country bent on getting to Net Zero to choose between two unacceptable alternatives.

                The systems cannot produce reliable consistent power. Faced with this a country can build enough storage and/or backup to make the supply reliable and consistent.

                Enough battery storage is probably impossible and certainly unaffordable. Backup on the scale required would obviate the need for the intermittent generation.

                The second alternative is to force the population to ac

      • Baseline power can be increased on demand. Intermittent cannot. You can't compare the two, and without huge invest like the Swiss did of reservoir and pump as physical battery , your renewable cannot be used as basis for industry.

    • Re:Put them out of business the old fashioned way (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Klaxton ( 609696 ) on Friday July 08, 2022 @10:30AM (#62684242)

      Your cherrypicking claims about the cost of solar and wind versus nuclear have been refuted here multiple times.

    • If you don't like to see coal power plants being built, or suing for lost profits for being forced to close, then put them out of business the old fashioned way, offer a better product at a lower price.

      That's just stupid. Like, really, genuinely stupid. Capitalism doesn't work if you can force cause others to incur arbitrary expenses.

      Even someone living off the grid on solar still has to pay the externalized costs that you so wish to push on to them even though they are not your customer.

      You're not a capita

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        It's not stupid, the OP is right, although I suspect not in the way they intended. The best way to phase out fossil fuels would be by making people who use them pay the fair cost. The best way of doing that is with a strictly enforced carbon tax.

        I couldn't easily find out whether carbon taxes were one of the things that fall afoul of this treaty, but I wouldn't be surprised.

        • Even that is monstrously huge cherry picking.

          Shall we also offset that vs. deductions for the insanely awesome benefits of cheap energy for the general progress of humankind?

          You wanna yoke environmental costs on to something that has the greatest benefit? Fine. Then compare apples to apples, instead of something lawyers eyeing superyachts want to take a slice of.

          • In short, it's perfectly fine for democracy to decide just how much environmental problems are worth it for the benefits of the activities.

            And given the rude, early-death, infection-heavy, dirt-floor existence of most of human history (and half the world currently), cheap energy is a godsend.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            Maybe you could tone down the colourful rhetoric a bit so you make at least some sense? Unless it's the Wookiee defence you're going for....

    • The costs and benefits of oil/gas/solar/wind depend on many things, but in a lot of cases they depend on the regulatory environment. Oil and Gas actually are not cheap and, obviously, these are the first plants to be turned off when there is excess. But the main point is that oil and gas companies are not paying for one of the major externalities of their business -- that the excess CO2 in the atmosphere is cause substantial problems already and may make significant parts of the global less uninhabitable.

      Th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drhamad ( 868567 )
      You seem to be explaining why doing it the old fashioned way doesn't work, so I don't get your point. Unless you're just someone that doesn't think climate action is necessary, in which case this entire conversation is pointless.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      How solar power is "green" baffles me.

      Good, no need for a complicated reply since you get confused so easily. Of course, you couldn't put solar on rooftops or anything like that.

    • This is where someone comes along to say how we could put solar PV collectors on rooftops. How much does rooftop PV cost? It costs more than coal, natural gas, or nuclear fission. If rooftop solar is going to solve the problem then it needs to be cheaper.

      Rooftop solar is by far the most expensive option of all energy production. Yet still amazing in just the last decade how far solar has come on price and density.

      Then someone will likely want to bring up offshore windmills for energy. How much does that cost? Yep, more than nuclear fission or natural gas.

      Out of all the intermittent renewables seems wind (onshore) has the best chance of making a useful cost effective impact on energy. Increasing height of the windmills made cost effective by technology improvements substantially improves capacity factor and menu suitable locations for deployment.

      Now someone is waiting to point out how long it takes to build a nuclear power plant, or for a natural gas well to produce fuel. That doesn't matter near as much as the cost. Reliability is part of the cost. Batteries for storing wind and solar energy add to the costs. If it takes a long time for these energy sources to produce then there is your chance to prove you can come in at lower cost.

      Yes the grid is going to need to massively expand an

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      A friend of mine in Germany "paved over" his roof with solar panels and it's working out fairly well for him.

      Gas is "green" compared to brown coal though I wouldn't really call it green over all. Nuclear certainly can be green as long as you don't let monkey wrenchers force the stupidest possible management of the waste in support of fossil fuels.

  • And this comes as A surprise to Whom with brains equipped? At least for The Whom Who can add 1+1=2, I'm asking. I Don't mean the politicians here. I really don't.

  • > "But how simple is it to prize countries from the influence of this treaty?"

    An American spelling I was unaware of, unlike other -ize words. Yet "enterprise" remains the same...

  • These five people should be required to move to an island somewhere and be required to live without any product that is made with hydrocarbons for five years. In fact, we'll spot you whatever you need for the first year as long as those things don't involve hydrocarbons in their production.

  • Every cent in fossil fuel revenue is taxed at one cent. You get 100 million in settlement over an ECT suit? Here is a tax bill for 100 million. Problem solved.

  • From a secular perspective, life is a way the Universe has found to consume more energy. Not more, no less. It is a duty of life to change the environment and consume it; any attempt at stopping that goes against the 2nd principle of thermodynamics. Its seems incredible that a life form released poisonous, corrosive gas that killed 90% of the life forms on the planet - that life form is the cyanobacteria and the gas is oxygen. It is amusing to think that if environmentalists existed in the precambrian, oxyg

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by vivian ( 156520 )

      You might be a vegetable and able to subsist on CO2 - the rest of us quite like oxygen and the relatively low CO2 levels that our ancestors evolved for, thanks.

      • You have a legitimate opinion, but it is irrelevant to how the Universe intrinsically works. The energy contained in that coal *will* have to be used, in a way or another. Instead of blaming the bad effects, let's take advantage of them. For example, there is a possibility that vast parts of Siberia and Canada might become habitable and productive.

  • TL;DR. Short form: crazy people think everyone should bend to their delusional religion.

  • These nations made a quiet treaty that pretty much guaranteed that these nations would protect the energy companies interest. Great that these kids are going after them to stop this. Even now, Europe and other nations continues to fuck with things by pushing Biomass and claim that burning trees is OK. Yet, new ones are not planted. The only real choice is to bury that wood/bio-mass.

    However, going after the west really will not help THAT much. The west has dropped our emissions and other than a few nation

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