How the Toxic Trade Deal You've Never Heard Of Could Kill the Climate

As world leaders attempt to hammer out a global climate deal in Paris this week, trade officials are meeting in Geneva to continue negotiations on the mammoth Trade in Services Agreement (TISA)—and according to secret documents published Thursday, "the objectives of each could not be more diametrically opposed."

The latest publication by WikiLeaks exposes new threats from TISA, the least well-known of the so-called Big Three "strategic neoliberal trade deals being advanced by the Obama administration."

As with the other two—the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) and the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)—its contents bode poorly for environmental and climate safeguards, according to expert analyses published alongside the documents. 

TISA, currently being negotiated by the U.S., EU and 22 other countries that account for two-thirds of global GDP, would be the largest trade treaty of its kind in history and takes aim at the world's massive service industries.

According to World Bank figures, "services"—an umbrella term that covers everything from package delivery to telecommunications to finance to energy production—comprise 75 percent of the EU economy, 80 percent of the U.S. economy, and the majority of the global economy.

The leaked chapters, or annexes, that went online Thursday have to do with energy, environmental, and freight transport services in particular.  All three contain troubling language or provisions.

Read more at How the Toxic Trade Deal You've Never Heard Of Could Kill the Climate