Global climate change poses the greatest environmental challenge humankind has ever faced. The window for responding to that challenge is closing rapidly; and doing so demands immediate and dramatic action both domestically and internationally.
The Customs Bill climate provision would raise new and very real barriers to effective climate action at a time when barriers should be coming down.
The language of the provision will reduce our ability to safeguard domestic climate actions from trade attacks. It will result in increased uncertainty regarding the United States’ negotiating authority in international climate negotiations and other key policy arenas. And it expressly forecloses an avenue of trade cooperation that could create genuine and important benefits for the global climate, and for the countless species who depend on a safe climate–including our own.
Accordingly, it should be rejected.