This methodology goes beyond traditional impact assessments as it includes an an analysis of goods that were already duty-free when CETA entered into force, such as iron ore, crude oil, hard coal, soya beans or many wood products. Only by including these commodities was it possible to identify the extent of harmful trade requiring targeted measures under a truly progressive trade agreement mitigating climate change. <\/span><\/p>\nTrade in goods between the EU and Canada<\/h3>\n
The analysis of the variations in trade flows reveals that bilat\u00e9ral trade in numerous products harmful for the climate has indeed increased since CETA\u2019s implementation. This is the case for the most important mineral raw material exported from Canada to the EU \u2013 iron ore \u2013 as well as fossil fuels such as crude oil and hard coal. In addition to accelerating climate change, the production and consumption of these minerals and fuels causes numerous other environmental impacts \u2013 such as air and water pollution, biodiversity loss and land use changes.<\/p>\n
The liberalisation of trade in agricultural products adds to the n\u00e9gative climate impact of CETA. The taux and tariff preferences offered for animal products such as dairy and beef pose particular risks, given that both partners largely failed to make any significant progress in reducing the GHG emissions of their livestock sectors, with methane the most harmful of the greenhous gases emitted. Since CETA\u2019s implementation, both partners\u2019 beef exports have risen sharply.<\/p>\n
Closely linked to the livestock industry is the Euro-Canadian trade in oilseeds used for animal feed, especially soya beans and rapeseed. While EU soy bean imports from Canada saw a rather modest increase, EU rapeseed imports, however, grew considerably since CETA\u2019s application. The large majority of rapeseed and soya plants grown in Canada are genetically modified to withstand being sprayed with herbicides. The use of these herbicides has increased substantially over the last 15 years causing biodiversity loss and significant GHG emissions. <\/span><\/p>\nTrade in forest products has increased since CETA\u2019s implementation. While EU wood imports from Canada reversed the decline they had experienced before the agreement, EU exports to Canada increased sharply. The bilat\u00e9ral increase in timber trade occurs against the background of accelerated forest loss in Canada and the EU as well. In both regions, forest land is suffering from a decrease in the ability to remove carbon dioxide, mainly due to high rates of industrial logging.<\/p>\n
CETA\u2019s market access commitments for the chemical industry are also fuelling demand for goods harmful for the environment. For instance, since CETA\u2019s implementation, EU plastics exports to Canada have risen substantially, including particularly damaging products such as microplastics, plastic packaging and synthetic fibres. The production of these plastics requires large amounts of energy and is thus a huge contributor to climate change.<\/p>\n
Another concern relates to the absence of targeted measures to mitigate the climate risks of trade in all these products. CETA does not link its trade preferences to concrete improvements in the production process of the sectors benefitting from the agreement. It also lacks concrete provisions to reduce or end trade in especially harmful products such as fossil fuels. Another glaring lacuna relates to the lack of technology transfer to facilitate the decarbonisation <\/span>dans the sectors which have been liberalised.<\/p>\nThese failures cannot be compensated by the fact that trade in environmental goods saw a slight increase since CETA\u2019s implementation, given that the share of \u2018green\u2019 goods in total bilat\u00e9ral trade never surpassed the threshold of 10 percent. It is therefore difficult to see how \u2018green\u2019 goods should be able to offset the climate impact of the 90 percent non-green and emissions-intensive goods exchanged between the EU and Canada.<\/p>\n
Rules, institutions and decisions governing climate policy<\/h3>\n
The analysis of the rules and institutions governing the agreement reveals further shortcomings. CETA\u2019s sustainability chapters, for instance, lack precise commitments to climate protection and do not even include a reference to the Paris Agreement \u2013 although the CETA negotiations coincided with the adoption of the Paris Agreement. The Trade and Sustainable Development Committee made only lacklustre efforts in enforcing meaningful climate protection measures, while the role of civil society in monitoring these provisions remains very limited. <\/span><\/p>\nThese weaknesses are compounded by the fact that the sustainability chapter is exempt from CETA\u2019s state-state dispute resolution mechanism, leaving it vulnerable to violations and subversion. Moreover, the European Commission declined Canada\u2019s offer to allow penalising violations of sustainability commitments with trade sanctions \u2013 despite the widely acknowledged deficit in enforcing sustainability provisions in EU trade agreements. This refusal is also regrettable as neither Party can claim to be a
\n<\/span>champion du climat: both Canada and the EU are lagging behind in achieving their climate goals.<\/p>\nComit\u00e9s et dialogues bilat\u00e9raux<\/h3>\n
The activities of the committees and bilat\u00e9ral dialogues established under CETA are another cause for concern. For instance, the committees enjoy extensive powers including the right to amend the agreement without the involvement of the European Parliament \u2013 a privilege which raised concerns about their democratic legalacy. By mutually recognising each other\u2019s standards, the committees may weaken environmental and climate regulations or limit the ability to unilaterally strictthen the requirements, for instance, for energy-intensive industries. Against this backdrop, the lack of transparency in the CETA committees is worrying: Detailed minutes are not readily available, and key information on participants is absent.<\/span><\/p>\nThe risks to environmental standards are clearly illustrated by the discussions in the SPS Committee on food safety. Canadian officials, for instance, argue that the EU\u2019s Maximum Residue Levels for pesticides are too stringent, a barrier to trade for their farmers. They also seek to influence regulations on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and want the EU to accept higher levels of unauthorised GM contamination in its export crops. Par cons\u00e9quent, le Canada a utilis\u00e9 le dialogue bilat\u00e9ral de l\u2019AECG sur les produits forestiers pour relever le nouveau r\u00e8glement de l\u2019UE sur la d\u00e9forestation \u2013 un d\u00e9veloppement encourageant les \u00e9missions massives associ\u00e9es \u00e0 la perte croissante de for\u00eats au Canada et dans l\u2019UE.<\/p>\n
The fossil fuel lobby, particularly in Canada, managed to significantly influence the EU Fuel Quality Directive during CETA negotiations. Tar sands oil, whose climate impact is especially high, is not adequately accounted for in the directive. This lobbying success may hinder future efforts to strengthen EU regulations on fossil fuels.<\/span><\/p>\nInvestissement: Flux, stocks et protection<\/h3>\n
Other shortcomings relate to CETA\u2019s rules on investment liberalisation and investment protection. CETA does not contain any provisions committing the partners to implement climate-related criteria for bilat\u00e9ral FDI (Foreign Direct Investment). Recherche sur environmental investment screening mechanism is needed because the emissions-intensive manufacturing industry and the mining, oil and gas industry are among the top sectors receiving bilat\u00e9ral investments in the EU and Canada. In addition, the analysis of FDI flows and stocks reveals that the large majority of bilat\u00e9ral investments in the EU and Canada are channelled through the two important EU tax havens, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Yet, these capital flows are diminishing the fiscal revenus desperately needed to support the energy transition.<\/p>\n
The Investment Court System (ICS) \u2013 a modified version of Investor-State-Dispute Settlement \u2013 gives foreign investors the exclusive right to sue states for damages if policy decisions impact their profits. This corporate privilege can significantly increase the cost of strong climate legislation \u2013 or even prevent the adoption of respective laws \u2013 due to the threat of compensation payments. Given the huge bilat\u00e9ral investments in the oil, gas and manufacTuring sectors, CETA has the potential to enable many investment disputes on climate legislation, emissions standards and the energy transition. Moreover, the \u2018Interpretative Declaration\u2019 intended to minimise these risks does not provide sufficient policy space as it is largely inadequate for this purpose. <\/span><\/p>\nAll these weaknesses point to perhaps the most basic failure of EU trade policy in relation to the climate crisis \u2013 the ongoing prioritisation of liberalisation over transformation. But as our analysis of CETA\u2019s implementation <\/span>clearly shows, these priorities must be re<\/span>versed. La transformation de l'appareil productif<\/span>atus, the decarbonisation of goods traded in<\/span>ternationally must take precedence over the dis<\/span>mantling of barriers to trade in order to center<\/span>ate climate change. <\/span><\/p>\nRecommandations<\/h3>\n
For a future revision of CETA we would therefore offer the following recommendations: <\/span><\/p>\n\n- include strong provisions on climate protection in all chapters of the agreement;<\/li>\n
- restrict or end trade in harmful products;<\/span><\/li>\n
- disempower undemocratic committees and create transparency;<\/li>\n
- include environmental investment screening and reject Investor-State Dispute Settlement. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
More Information about CETA can be found here (en fran\u00e7ais uniquement). This study was funded by the Fondation europ\u00e9enne pour le climat<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"L'Executive Summary CETA est un cheval de Troie. At first sight, it decreases tariffs and fosters trade between the parties. But look again: L\u2019AECG est une menace pour les consommateurs et les normes de protection de l\u2019environnement. \u2013Mirjam H\u00e4gele, Foodwatch This study, prepared by PowerShift, provides an an analysis of the climate impact of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)...<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":88385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[137,218,10,64,139],"post_series":[],"thema":[15],"coauthors":[57],"class_list":["post-88410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-publication","tag-ceta","tag-freihandel","tag-handelsabkommen","tag-handelspolitik-de","tag-umwelt","thema-handelspolitik","entry","has-media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88410"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97238,"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88410\/revisions\/97238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88410"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=88410"},{"taxonomy":"thema","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thema?post=88410"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/power-shift.de\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=88410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}