Big Coal Tapping Obscure Treaty Could Chill Green Revolution
Coal plant owners are using this little-known mechanism to try and recoup billions from governments who are forcing them to shut down polluting plants
RWE’s coal power station in Eemshaven, Netherlands.
Photographer: Ingo Wagner/picture alliance/Getty Images
The 20-foot-tall dinosaur stalking The Hague is an inflatable mash-up of cars, oil tankers and smokestacks. Its quarry: an obscure pact set up in the wake of the Cold War that activists say is being exploited by coal giants to stall Europe’s transition to clean energy.
The Energy Charter Treaty was designed in the early 1990s to encourage the West’s oil-and-gas industry to invest in former Soviet states, promising an independent arbitration tribunal if deals went awry. It evolved to cover the renewables business and expanded to 55 members, including the European Union, Russia, the U.K. and Turkmenistan.