WTO Ruling Against India's Solar Push Threatens Climate, Clean Energy

[arcane1]

The World Trade Organization (WTO) on Wednesday ruled against India over its national solar energy program in a case brought by the U.S. government, sparking outrage from labor and environmental advocates.

As power demands grow in India, the country's government put forth a plan to create 100,000 megawatts of energy from solar cells and modules, and included incentives to domestic manufacturers to use locally-developed equipment.

According to Indian news outlets, the WTO ruled that India had discriminated against American manufacturers by providing such incentives, which violates global trade rules, and struck down those policies—siding with the U.S. government in a case that the Sierra Club said demonstrates the environmentally and economically destructive power of pro-corporate deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

"Today, we have more evidence of how free trade rules threaten the clean energy economy and undermine action to tackle the climate crisis," Ilana Solomon, director of the Sierra Club's Responsible Trade Program, said on Thursday. "The U.S. should be applauding India’s efforts to scale up solar energy—not turning to the WTO to strike the program down."

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http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/08/27/wto-ruling-against-indias-solar-push-threatens-climate-clean-energy?

Corporations must always come first

[PatrickforO]

1. This is our centuries long foreign policy. Profits of American companies, American business

interests come before everything else. We are willing to let people starve, die from disease and live in war torn lands just to keep those profits coming.

[arcane1]

3. They tried to ban U.S. poultry and eggs to avoid avian flu, but the WTO forced India to accept them.

And we have a president and half a congress who thinks more trade deals like this are good!!

[hifiguy]

2. Welcome to the world of "free trade"

TPP will make this even worse.

[arcane1]

4. It will indeed. And it's bizarre that our president and the republicans share a love for it.

We just can't have nice things

[hifiguy]

5. He's as owned by the plutocracy as the other corporate Dems.

ACA did some good, but it was a huge sellout to Big Insurance and Big Pharma.

The Too-Big-To-Fail banks are bigger and more powerful than ever. No one was ever prosecuted by his AG, who is buddy-buddy with all the bank$ter$.

TPP and its sister sellout agreements are an inrescribable obscenity.

His first chief-of-staff referred to the people who got him the nomination as retards.

His nitwit education secretary is the best friend the school-privatizers ever had.

The "Patriot" Act still stands. The NSA continues snooping away.

Whistleblowers have been persecuted as never before.

There are still prisoners at Gitmo

Afghanistan drags on and there are rumblings of going back to Iraq.

A wolf in sheep's clothing.

Fuck all this horseshit.

Real Democrats and liberals got scammed, snookered, had, chumped, taken, and pantsed in the middle of the playground by both Clinton and Obama.

No More Turd Way. Ever.

[bvar22]

6. All I have to add is...

I agree 100%.


WTH is a "Trade Organization" telling an independent democracy what they can and can't build?
Nobody elected these guys who are running the World.

[pampango]

7. If India had just provided incentives for the adoption of solar power the WTO could not have cared

less.

And "domestic manufacturers" would probably have used primarily Indian-made solar equipment anyway, since it is a lot cheaper than stuff made in the US. They hardly need local-content rules. Have some faith in your own people, India.

If you want to promote the use of solar energy, great. Go for it. All governments should. Provide subsidies for renewable energy equipment regardless of where it is from. Don't come back and say "BUT only if the renewable energy equipment is from HERE not from THERE." Why qualify it if your interest is in the environment and renewable energy?

If you want to discriminate against products based on where they are made, don't join an organization designed to prevent such discrimination. Subsidies for MY stuff has the same effect as tariffs on YOUR stuff. The WTO grew out of GATT which was part of FDR's International Trade Organization. He was all about reducing tariffs and promoting trade. Quite different from the "subsidize OUR stuff and put tariffs on YOUR stuff" republicans who preceded him.

[JDPriestly]

8. I would like to recommend this a million times.

Most important post this week!