Thread by @CamilleEtienne_

Today, five victims of climate change are suing a dozen European governments with the European court of human rights. They blame a scandalous and secretive International treaty that protects fossil fuel companies. (Thread 🧶)
#leaveECT

These past few months, we’ve been working hard on this infamous Energy Charter Treaty, far from our screens and with the valued help of experts. Honestly, when I discovered its existence a few months ago, I couldn't believe it.

An international treaty, the Energy Charter Treaty, gives fossil fuel companies the right to sue governments after actions against climate change overturn their investments - and profits - in fossil fuels.
Yes, you’ve read that right.

This treaty stems from the end of the cold war.
When it was created, its goal was to protect investments of fossil fuel companies that were exploiting oil deposits in countries considered to be politically unstable: for instance, it takes a long time to build a pipeline,

but politics moves fast. If laws that jeopardize the project are passed while it’s being built, or if the country becomes politically unstable, the treaty will protect a company’s investment even though it was issued 30 years ago.

But now, fossil fuel companies are using it as a tool to prevent governmental efforts to act on climate.

This all happens in secretive corporate courts, away from the public eye.
Because of this treaty, several billion euros of public money have already disappeared in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry and financial speculators.

For instance, the British oil and gas company Rockhopper is currently suing the Italian government for 300 million euros under the ECT over a ban on offshore oil drilling in order to protect their coastline.

Slovenia is being sued by the British company Ascent which is demanding 100 million euros under the ECT following the ban on shale gas.

The German companies RWE and Unipper are asking 1.4 and 1 billion respectively from the Netherlands following its decision to phase out coal by 2030.

The worst thing is that it also gives the fossil fuel industry immense bargaining power. They don’t even have to wait for the law to pass, oil and gas companies just need to brandish the ECT as a threat to discourage governments from taking ambitious measures.

Has this ever happened?

Yes ! In France, a famous law proposed by former minister Nicolas Hulot, which aimed to put a stop to exploration and exploitation of oil, went from very ambitious to virtually empty after the Canadian company Vermilion brandished the ECT threat.

In Germany, after the country’s coal exit law, the government had to pay 4 billion euros to two European companies to prevent them from brandishing the ECT threat. NGOs say that this is 12 times the normal estimated amount for compensation.

And this is far from being anecdotal; to date, there were at least 150 cases involving the ECT. The IPCC explicitly refers to the ECT in its latest report as a dangerous obstacle to governmental action on the climate crisis.

For a long time, governments have done nothing to withdraw from this treaty. But now, a few years ago, European governments started a revision of the treaty for its "modernisation". But in the eyes of experts, it’s impossible to reform this treaty to make it compatible

with the Paris Agreement. If we want to achieve climate goals, we need to withdraw from the treaty.

Yamina Saheb, author of the IPCC and former head of the Energy Efficiency Unit of the ECT International Secretaria, deems impossible a revision of the Paris agreements.

Since then, she has been alerting governments on the urgency to withdraw from the ECT in order to meet our climate goals.

That’s what Italy did, and what the French government and the EU are being asked to do.

This court case could help us achieve this. If the European Court of Human Rights recognizes that this treaty creates victims by protecting the oil and gas companies that continue to extract fossil fuels from the ground and impedes governmental climate actions,

then maybe these governments would have no other choice than to scrap this treaty.

The legal battle will undoubtedly be long, but if you want to help us, join us. Here’s how you can help:

There are 3 days left before the end of the “modernisation” negotiations. The important thing is to pull this treaty out from the shadows, so that decision-makers can see that civil society is getting hold of it, that we won't let them decide without us.

Above all else, spread the word around you, retweet this thread, understand the subject and what’s at stake. You can massively tag E.Macron or your president and ask him to "free Europe from the climate treaty ECT, #leavetheECT".

At the end of these 3 days, we have little hope for a positive outcome (a pure and simple withdrawal from the treaty) so we have a long way to go. To send out your support to these 5 young men and women brave enough to confront their government,

sign this petition:
exitect.org
We will keep you up to date regarding our next actions.

In 2022 we cannot afford to allow such dangerous legal tools to be in the hands of oil and gas companies. This news can seem a bit depressing, but all these shady mechanisms exist, we just don’t know about them all.

To understand these mechanisms of inaction is to grow stronger, to learn new strategies to break them. To understand the rules of the game is to give yourself a chance to thwart them.