Paris Agreement on climate to be built into Brexit deal

BRITISH and EU negotiators have moved closer to enshrining the Paris Agreement on climate change in the new Brexit free trade deal.

Either side can cancel the free trade agreement if the other reneges on their 2015 promise to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, under the terms of the potential breakthrough.

In March, Britain called for a climate agreement separate from the free trade deal that would affirm support for Paris.

The UK is now ready to hardwire respect for the Paris Agreement into the draft trade deal, sources on both sides said as negotiators met in London yesterday. There is disagreement over whether the Paris commitment should be enshrined in the “provisions” of the deal, the UK’S latest position, or the agreement’s “essential elements”, where it would sit alongside rules forbidding crimes against humanity.

If put in the essential elements, the whole trade deal could be suspended as punishment if either side left the UN accord. If the commitment is the provisions, the punishment would be the triggering of dispute resolution procedures.

EU sources claimed UK negotiators were preparing to give in to their demands for Paris to be in the essential elements chapter of the deal. “We don’t expect this to be a problem to resolve,” an EU official said. UK sources said there were still differences over how to reflect the climate commitment. “We have been clear from the start of negotiations that our future trading relationship with the EU should reaffirm both sides’ commitment to tackling climate change,” a UK government official said.

The UK holds the presidency of the COP, the decision-making body for the Paris Agreement, and was the first major economy to pass a law to cut net carbon emissions to zero by 2050.