Dear John
We're always hearing really bad news for our climate.
Which is why I was shocked to wake up to some great news yesterday morning.
The government has finally announced the UK is going to leave the dangerous Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). A treaty which lets fossil fuel companies sue governments for taking climate action.
100,000 people signed a petition asking the government to do just that. And we got a response. We were told the UK would exit the treaty if efforts to make sure fossil fuel firms couldn’t use it to hold back climate action failed.
But last autumn, as more countries came to the conclusion that an agreement designed to hand all the power to polluters and big business just couldn’t be fixed, our government went a little bit quiet.
We didn’t think that was good enough. We’ve been chasing this promise every month, asking the government to admit that the ECT is broken, and make plans to leave. We’ve been reminding them that thousands of people are waiting for the exit that was promised. And now it seems the government finally got the memo.
We’re leaving the ECT. That means fossil fuel firms from nearly 50 countries won’t be able to use it to challenge decisions that protect people and planet in future. And in my book, that’s a huge and long-deserved win.
We really couldn’t have done this without supporters like you. So, if you can, could you set up a monthly donation to help vital campaigning work like this continue?