Stop the Energy Charter Treaty!

It’s the biggest climate action killer nobody has ever heard of.

The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is a major obstacle to fast and effective action on the climate and environmental crisis.

The ECT is an obscure treaty from the 1990s that grants sweeping rights and protections to big energy investors – mainly fossil fuel companies. In Europe alone €350 billion euros worth of oil, gas and coal projects are protected under the ECT. The fossil fuel industry is using it to sue governments and sabotage the energy transition. Not before normal courts with judges. But in secretive tribunals, settled by commercial arbiters who have an incentive to favour corporations.

After years of campaigning for an exit of the EU and the United Kingdom, Friends of the Earth Europe and climate justice activists across Europe have now secured the withdrawal of the UK, a long list of EU Member States – including France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Poland – and of the EU itself in April 2024. A great victory for the environment, the climate and trade justice!

The massive wave of countries leaving the climate-wrecking Energy Charter Treaty is a victory, but many other international agreements still contain investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses. Like with the ECT, those clauses are used, more and more, by fossil fuel corporations to attack government policies that might negatively impact their profits. It is necessary to amend or terminate all these treaties to ensure bold climate action, environmental protection and just transition policies. The fight for climate and trade justice is not over.