Did Britain Give Up Environmental Goals For Trade?

Rumour doing rounds is that Britain has given up climate change goals for Free Trade Agreement to materialise with Australia

In a surprising move, The United Kingdom has dropped its climate change targets in order to get the free trade agreement going with Australia. Maybe its decision to move out to Brexit is a reason enough for this movement.

The news comes through an official document that came into limelight with certain British media house that 10 Downing Street has gone ahead and sacrificed the climate change targets for trade.

The official document said: ‘The Business Secretary has agreed that, in order to get the Australia FTA over the line, DIT can drop both of the climate asks.’

The British government has been in denial saying that this is the first time ever that the mention of climate change has come while speaking of about trade with Australia. All it seems is that everything is status quo and there will be no harm to the environment while doing trade with Australia.

Finally, “Trade Minister Dan Tehan put out a statement saying, ‘Australia has remained consistent that all our FTAs should focus on international cooperation and meeting existing multilateral environment commitments. Australia and the UK have agreed to work cooperatively on environmental issues including emissions reduction’.”

Environmental concerns are on top priority for any country at the moment. In the first phase of the lockdown in 2019, Britain had been heavily investing itself in renewable energy due to the situation of loss of manpower to manage its other resources. It has been one of the most vocal proponents of the UN Sustainability Goals 2030 too.