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Dear god. We really don't need adjudicators kicking up any more mischief today.
Yet here we are: WTO rules against 7 US states' renewable energy programs.
This reinforces something I've been saying for a while:
The Green New Deal needs to a plan to fix global governance.
Yet here we are: WTO rules against 7 US states' renewable energy programs.
This reinforces something I've been saying for a while:
The Green New Deal needs to a plan to fix global governance.
Here are the policies they ruled against:
Renewables plans in Washington state, California, Delaware, and Michigan.
Solar plans in Connecticut and Minnesota.
Biodiesel plans in Montana.
These states all have Blue governors trying to act in the absence of federal action.
Renewables plans in Washington state, California, Delaware, and Michigan.
Solar plans in Connecticut and Minnesota.
Biodiesel plans in Montana.
These states all have Blue governors trying to act in the absence of federal action.
The Green New Deal is premised on giving local communities a tangible economic and institutional stake in decarbonization. That means incentives to Buy Local, which the WTO will per se read as "protectionism."
Would I prefer a federal plan instead of a thicket of state experiments? Absolutely. But a federal Green New Deal would run into the same problem at the WTO.
Here's a great paper by my colleagues @JWMason1, @MarkVinPaul, and Anders Fremstad on how we usher in and pay for a Green New Deal.
Here's my conference paper that examines the international dimension.
In it, I argue that most of the Green New Deal's elements are explicitly international in scope, or could be.
I propose a 10-year suspension/conversion of the WTO for the GND duration
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
In it, I argue that most of the Green New Deal's elements are explicitly international in scope, or could be.
I propose a 10-year suspension/conversion of the WTO for the GND duration
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
Why did activists go to the local level in the first place? Changing political opportunity structures, as this work by David J. Hess et al shows.
It's a direct result of the GOP's war on climate policy at the federal level.
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
It's a direct result of the GOP's war on climate policy at the federal level.
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Here's the kind of policies they developed: industrial policies, promoting backward linkages to upstream manufacturers. Of the type of policy used widely by all now developed countries in their non-green development phase - now directed at greening the economy.
On a quick scan, the WTO panel rather handily dealt with all the major elements: 1) Likeness /comparability of local and imported products, distinguished only by their origin. (The US didn't contest this)...
2) The US also didn't contest that the local policies were "laws, regulations, and requirements" - the next plank.
Then 3) "Affecting the[] internal sale, offering for sale, purchase, transportation, distribution or use" of relevant products." Here's where things get interesting. Current WTO jurisprudence doesn't require India (the complainant) to show any actual damage or lost sales.
4) Was there less favorable treatment of imports? Again, not reality based determination of whether India was hurt or even tried to sell anything to Washington state. Irrelevant
Check, check, check, check. The writing was on the wall when this case was launched by India in 2016. It could have gone no other way.
There are real consequences to having the central organizing principle of the planet be unrestricted goods flows. Other values were on offer - solidarity, equity - now sustainability. We ditched those, as recent work by @zeithistoriker @samuelmoyn and others have dutifully shown.
