This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

by Naomi Klein

When the U.N. climate agreement was signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, it made clear that “measures taken to combat climate change, including unilateral ones, should not constitute . . . a disguised restriction on international trade.” (Similar language appears in the Kyoto Protocol.) As Australian political scientist Robyn Eckersley puts it, this was “the pivotal moment that set the shape of the relationship between the climate and trade regimes” because, “Rather than push for the recalibration of the international trade rules to conform with the requirements of climate protection . . . the Parties to the climate regime have ensured that liberalized trade and an expanding global economy have been protected against trade-restrictive climate policies.” This practically guaranteed that the negotiating process would be unable to reckon with the kinds of bold but “trade-restrictive” policy options that could have been coordinated internationally—from buy-local renewable energy programs to restrictions on trade in goods produced with particularly high carbon footprints.28