{"id":73132,"date":"2016-05-09T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T11:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=73132"},"modified":"2016-05-09T12:35:58","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T11:35:58","slug":"ttip-leaked-documents-show-obama-demands-killing-paris-accord-against-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/05\/ttip-leaked-documents-show-obama-demands-killing-paris-accord-against-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"TTIP Leaked Documents Show Obama Demands Killing Paris Accord against Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

2 May 2016 – <\/em>“248 pages of leaked Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiating texts\u201d<\/a>\u00a0show that the American negotiating position, as Greenpeace put the matter, allows “No place for climate protection in TTIP,\u201d<\/strong> and, though “We have known that the EU position was bad, now we see the US position is even worse.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Jorgo Riss, Director of Greenpeace EU, said, “The effects of TTIP would be initially subtle but ultimately devastating<\/strong>. It would lead to European laws being judged\u00a0\u2026 disregarding environmental protection and public health concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 70-year-old EU rule, which\u00a0allows nations to restrict trade in order \u201cto protect human, animal and plant life or health,”<\/strong> or for “the conservation of exhaustible natural resources,\u201d would end, if U.S. President Barack Obama gets what he wants.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Furthermore, the\u00a0\u201cPrecautionary principle is forgotten\u201d:<\/strong> it\u2019s currently enshrined in the EU Treaty, but Obama wants it gone; it is\u00a0stated in the EU Treaty as allowing<\/a>\u00a0“rapid response in the face of a possible danger to human, animal or plant health, or to protect the environment. In particular, where scientific data do\u00a0not permit a complete evaluation of the risk, recourse to this principle may, for example, be used to stop distribution or order withdrawal from the market of\u00a0products likely to be hazardous.\u201d Obama wants there to be no ability for EU nations to withdraw from the market\u00a0\u201cproducts likely to be hazardous.\u201d All products would be assumed safe, unless\u00a0proven\u00a0not to be.<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Other TTIP developments in recent days:<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s\u00a0Independent\u00a0headlined on April 29th,\u00a0“TTIP could cause an NHS sell-off and UK\u00a0Parliament would be powerless to stop it, says\u00a0leading union\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0 and reported that a labor union,\u00a0\u201cUnite,\u201d was determined to block TTIP from going into effect in the UK: “Gail Cartmail, Unite assistant general secretary, said that it was ‘a scandal’ that MPs [Members of Parliament] may not have the democratic power to stop TTIP, which she\u00a0said ‘threatens the irreversible sell-off of our NHS [National Health Service]\u2019.\u201d Privatization of government assets is favorably viewed by Obama.<\/p>\n

Tamara Hervey, a professor of EU law at the University of Sheffield, told the\u00a0Independent, “The UK government could include a reservation in the agreement to say that it does not include the NHS. As far as I understand, that isn’t on the\u00a0table, even though several other EU countries have already put such reservations in the negotiating text.\u201d British Prime Minister David Cameron, like Obama, is strongly in favor of privatization.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Independent\u00a0said, “Obama used a recent visit to the EU to push for the completion of TTIP, promising it would remove ‘regulatory and bureaucratic irritants and\u00a0blockages to trade\u2019.\u201d Now, we know that in his mind the EU\u2019s existing regulations concerning environmental protection and product safety belong in that category: \u201cbureaucratic irritants and\u00a0blockages to trade.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s\u00a0Guardian\u00a0banners on May 1st,\u00a0\u201cLeaked TTIP Documents Cast Doubt on EU-US Trade Deal\u201d<\/a>,\u00a0and Arthur Nelson in Brussels, reports that, “Because of a European ban on animal testing, ‘the EU and US approaches remain irreconcilable and EU market access problems will therefore remain\u2019,\u201d which is yet further indication of Obama\u2019s free-market convictions: he doesn\u2019t accept any ban on animal-testing of products.<\/strong> Presumably, he wants to allow corporations to determine what the cheapest way to determine a product\u2019s safety or dangerousness is, regardless of whether the animal model that\u2019s used tells anything reliable about the product\u2019s safety on humans. If one nation\u2019s testing procedure is less reliable than another\u2019s, then Obama wants the two to compete as equals, so that the incentive will exist for all corporations to use the cheapest method, regardless of the method\u2019s reliability, or even humaneness. Obama didn\u2019t run for President as a libertarian, but he turns out to be remarkably libertarian in his policies. He\u2019s pushing for a vigorous race to the bottom, in all sorts of regulations.<\/p>\n

Polls show Obama to have extremely high approval-ratings in European countries, such as\u00a062% in Germany<\/a>\u00a0(far higher than any German national politician). Polls also show TTIP to be extremely\u00a0unpopular there. <\/strong>The contradiction apparently isn\u2019t noticed by respondents\u00a0\u2014 approval of a politician has no clear correlation with the politician\u2019s policies. Obama is black, and he speaks well; and, perhaps that\u2019s enough.\u00a0Perhaps Europeans don\u2019t really care very much about such things as global warming, product-safety, or humaneness toward animals. If that\u2019s true, then EU Parliamentarians can likewise ignore such matters and simply vote to approve TTIP, notwithstanding the merely nominal opposition to it amongst the electorate.<\/em><\/strong> The percentage of voters who really care about such issues might actually be inconsequential. If that\u2019s the situation, then corruption makes sense, because the money that a politician thereby obtains for his\/her campaign will far outbalance the potential loss of voters\u2019 support that results from violating their interests \u2014 only words will matter, a politician\u2019s actual record won\u2019t<\/u><\/strong>, in terms of the given politician\u2019s support by voters. If that\u2019s true, then the results of democracy might be no better than the results of dictatorship; there might be no real difference.<\/p>\n

Certainly, the disabling of the\u00a0Paris Agreement on Climate Change<\/a>\u00a0would have enormous impact;<\/strong> but, if a politician\u2019s rhetoric has a bigger effect on his favorability-rating than his policies do, Obama might be highly regarded even when the planet is burning up as a consequence of his policies.<\/p>\n

____________________________________<\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 <\/em>They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/a>,<\/em> of\u00a0<\/em>Christ\u2019s Ventriloquists: The Event that Created Christianity<\/a>, and\u00a0of<\/em>\u00a0Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – zerohedge.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“248 pages of leaked Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiating texts\u201d show that the American negotiating position, as Greenpeace put the matter, allows “No place for climate protection in TTIP,\u201d and, though “We have known that the EU position was bad, now we see the US position is even worse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}