The international energy treaty or ECT has a clause which allows fossil fuel companies to sue the government for any damage that they might incur by governmental moves to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Initially set up as Western energy companies moved into new markets after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this treaty has increasingly been used by fossil fuel companies to block government from cutting their emissions in a way that all the science says is necessary.
These moves by the fossil fuel companies are totally undemocratic, indeed far from being able to block changes to the rules making them clean up their act, these companies should really be held to account and made to pay for the damage they have done over the last 150 years.
Treaties of this sort are important in places, stopping nationalistic governments from penalising foreign companies. However it is totally wrong when private financial interests block the public from taking necessary environmental action. If that is what is currently happening then change is necessary.
