MEPs vote to leave treaty used by investors to sue over climate policies

Coordinated withdrawal agreed after several member states and UK have quit energy charter treaty

European lawmakers have voted to escape a treaty that lets investors sue governments in private courts for pursuing policies that stop the planet from heating.

Fossil fuel companies have used the energy charter treaty (ECT), an international trade agreement from the 1990s, to demand billions of euros of taxpayers’ money in opaque tribunals set up to protect investors.