A year on from our first climate change campaign

A year ago, we launched our first public advocacy campaign on climate change and trade, calling on the UK government ‘to get in on the ACCTS.’

At the start of 2021, as the government geared up to host COP26 (the United Nations Climate Change conference), and talked up its commitment to global climate leadership, one issue that seemed worryingly missing from its thinking was the connection between climate change and trade. 

The links between the two are unavoidable; international trade contributes significantly to carbon emissions and trade rules can get in the way of governments developing green policies.

Nevertheless, trade was absent from the Glasgow agenda, and – on the evidence of several of the newly negotiated UK Free Trade Agreements –climate action seems to be slipping alarmingly between the cracks of UK trade policy. 

That’s why we were so keen for the government to get involved with Agreement on Climate Change Trade and Sustainability (ACCTS).

ACCTS is a trade agreement started by New Zealand, Costa Rica and others to end fossil fuel subsidies and help green businesses to thrive. Here was a gilt-edged opportunity for the UK to boost an initiative that explicitly joins the dots between trade and climate action and make good on its climate leadership claims in the process.

Almost 14,500 of us came together to call for the UK to join ACCTS. Your support helped us to get MPs and Peers to ask questions on the issue in Parliament. And the government responded encouragingly, by actively exploring the option of joining ACCTS. 

Since our Covid-enforced virtual petition hand-in, we have been continuing to make the case behind the scenes with civil servants, and sharing our thinking in government consultations on the issue.

So it was a blow when the government recently told us that the UK had decided not to join ACCTS ‘at this stage.’ This wasn’t an outright refusal. Not a definitive decision never to sign up. But it was clear that the government’s initial enthusiasm for the initiative had cooled, and that it was now focusing elsewhere.

Nevertheless, although the news was disappointing, it’s also not the end of the story. Understanding and adapting to setbacks like this is a key part of advocating for change. So, what does this mean for our ACCTS campaign and what’s next for our influencing in this area?

First off, while we need to be realistic that we are unlikely to change the government’s mind on ACCTS specifically, it’s also worth recognising what we have achieved. Even if we haven’t got the campaign win we might have liked, we can certainly take satisfaction from what our campaign has delivered in highlighting a neglected issue.

Alongside fellow organisations working on trade and climate change, such as the Trade Justice Movement, our ACCTS campaign successfully focused government attention on the connections between climate change and trade.

And while there is still a huge amount to do on this - environmental sustainability is far from the priority it needs to be– our ACCTS campaign presented a clear proposition on trade and climate change, that the government gave serious attention to. The interlink between climate and trade can no longer be claimed to be under the radar. 

Secondly, although ACCTS seems to be off the table for the UK, some of the opportunities and issues associated with it are still very much live. We were in favour of ACCTS because it provided a chance for the UK to support global collaboration on trade and climate change, and also to take action on specific issues such as fossil fuel subsidies. Here, there are some positive signs.

In December, the UK co-signed a ministerial statement on trade and environmental sustainability at the World Trade Organization (WTO) which, though not yet going as far as ACCTS, does commit 71 WTO members to work on this agenda.

Meanwhile, the UK was also one of 17 members to sign a ministerial statement committing to fossil fuel reform and made further commitments on ending fossil fuel subsidies in its trade agreement with New Zealand.

These may be small steps, but they are small steps in the right direction. And though relative to the UK’s overall attitude to trade and climate, their importance shouldn’t be overstated, they are also things we can work with. So, we’ll be keeping a close eye on how the UK’s work with these ministerial groups develops. And as the UK continues to negotiate trade agreements with other countries, we’ll keep pointing to the commitments on fossil fuel subsidies in the New Zealand deal as a precedent to be followed. 

We’ll be sorry, of course, to retire our getting in on the ACCTS pun – we were really rather pleased with that one – but we do see the campaign as having played a really important role in laying the foundations for more campaigns to come.