Author Archives: RacheleODowd

WTO swats down India’s massive solar initiative

by RacheleODowd Posted on February 25, 2016

WTO swats down India’s massive solar initiative

By on 24 Feb 2016commentsShare

The World Trade Organization delivered a blow to India’s ambitious solar power program on Wednesday at the behest of the United States. So much for all that nice chatter about international climate cooperation back in December.

Responding to a U.S. complaint, a WTO dispute panel ruled that several provisions of India’s National Solar Mission were “inconsistent” with international trade norms. The point of contention? India’s solar plan, which seeks to install 100 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2022, requires a certain percentage of cells and panels to be manufactured locally.

These types of provisions, called domestic content requirements, are prohibited under most international trade agreements. Want to be part of the WTO? You gotta be open to trade — every time — or you’re guilty of the dreaded protectionism.

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An estimated 300 million Indians don’t have access to electricity. The country’s solar plan, launched in 2010, aims to change that — while simultaneously combating poverty via job creation. And while India has indeed made strides in adding solar capacity, the U.S. argues that the Solar Mission’s domestic content requirements have led to a 90 percent decrease in its solar exports to India since 2011. The export losses led the U.S. to file a WTO complaint, which has been staunchly opposed by several U.S. environmental groups. In August of last year, the WTO panel released a preliminary ruling against the Indian domestic content requirements, and Wednesday’s ruling finalized that decision.

U.S. solar industry leaders praised the WTO panel ruling. (Recall that they stand to make more money by selling their equipment in India.) “This decision helps us bring clean energy to the people of India, as that nation’s demand for electricity rapidly grows,” Dan Whitten, vice president of communications for the Solar Energy Industries Association, told PV-Tech. This, of course, ignores the fact that domestic content requirements allow a country like India to provide themselves with clean energy. (And to potentially do so with fewer emissions, as domestically produced solar panels don’t have to be shipped in from overseas — but this story isn’t exactly about what’s right for the environment.)

The ruling is a particularly harsh kick in the gut to climate cooperation, coming so soon after the (quasi-)promising results reached in Paris last December. “The ink is barely dry on the U.N. Paris Climate Agreement, but clearly trade still trumps real action on climate change,” said Sam Cossar-Gilbert, a program coordinator at Friends of the Earth International, in a statement.

You might be tempted to call the U.S. a hypocrite at this point: On the one hand, it led the Paris climate talks in all but name, while on the other hand, it pressed ahead with its WTO complaint against India. But this isn’t so much a demonstration of American inconsistency on the issue as it is of the disconnect between trade policy and climate policy more generally. If there’s hypocrisy to be found anywhere, it’s in U.S. trade policy itself: The United States supports some degree of subsidies for local renewables in nearly half of all states. India could likely file a WTO complaint against the U.S. if it wanted.

This isn’t the first time that trade agreements have cast a shadow over a domestic solar initiative. In 2012, for example, in response to a complaint filed on behalf of Japan and the E.U., the WTO ruled against the government of Ontario’s green energy program, which incentivized renewable producers to source goods and services from inside the province. As the free-trade logic goes, these types of local content requirements discriminate against foreign manufacturers.

Wednesday’s decision comes at a time of rampant coal and waste burning for India. In Delhi, air quality is now worse than in Beijing. While India will now consider an appeal to the WTO Appellate Body, it’s worth noting that when Canada appealed the Ontario WTO ruling, it lost.

Said Cossar-Gilbert: “Trade policies are preventing a sustainable future.”

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WTO swats down India’s massive solar initiative

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, green energy, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, solar panels, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on WTO swats down India’s massive solar initiative

Can Republican Governors Block Syrian Refugees From Settling in Their States?

by RacheleODowd Posted on November 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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In the wake of last Friday’s attacks in Paris, Republican governors across the country have made their positions clear—they want nothing to do with the Syrians fleeing ISIS. On Sunday, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley announced that his state won’t accept any Syrian refugees. On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbot, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence followed suit. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal issued an executive order to halt the flow of Syrian refugees to his state (it has accepted 14).

Even Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who had previously called welcoming refugees “part of being a good Michigander,” announced he was suspending his work with the federal government on bringing Syrians to his state. “Michigan is a welcoming state and we are proud of our rich history of immigration,” he said in a statement. “But our first priority is protecting the safety of our residents.”

What Snyder and his Republicans haven’t explained is how they could legally do this. Refugee resettlement is a federal responsibility in which states have historically had only an advisory role. The Department of Homeland Security screens applicants. The State Department places them in new communities by working with a network of nonprofits on the ground. And the the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement works with refugees to make the transition in their new communities. (Here’s a chart if you’re confused.)

State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner told reports Monday that the government would listen to the concerns of local officials, but it would not take a position on the legality of the governors’ decrees or even say whether a governor could erect checkpoints to vet potential refugees entering their states. “Whether they can legally do that, I don’t have an answer for you,” he said. “I don’t. I think our lawyers are looking at that.”

But other experts are more emphatic. “They don’t have the legal authority to stop resettlement in their states—much less to stop the presence of a legally authorized individual based on nationality,” says Jen Smyers, associate director for immigration and refugee policy at the Church World Service, an international nonprofit that does refugee resettlement. If a family of Syrian refugees decides they want to move in with their relatives in Michigan (a hub for Muslim and Christian immigrants from the Middle East) there’s nothing Rick Snyder can do to stop them. “There are really clear discrimination protections against saying someone can’t be in your state depending on where you’re from,” Smyers notes.

Nor do the states have much have much power of the purse as far as refugee resettlement is concerned. The work of resettlement is handled by a network of public-private partnerships, and the public money comes from the federal level. In some cases, the federal dollars are diverted through state governments, but they’re merely a pass-through. “If they were to hold up that fund, there would certainly be legal ramifications,” Smyers says. Simply put, if these Republicans really want to block refugees from entering their states, they are asking for a fight.

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Can Republican Governors Block Syrian Refugees From Settling in Their States?

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Can Republican Governors Block Syrian Refugees From Settling in Their States?