Years-long talks over updating an international energy investment treaty ended on Friday with a provisional deal which would allow the exclusion of fossil fuels interests but not fast enough to silence environmental campaigners’ complaints that it undermines efforts to curb climate change. The 1994 Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) was conceived to support the energy sector in former Soviet Union countries, allowing investors to sue governments over policies that jeopardise their investments. When it was signed, it was the first agreement covering production, distribution, export and use of energy resources to be signed by all the former Soviet republics, central and eastern Europe, the European Union and other industrialised countries. The updated version gives countries the option to remove protection from investments in fossil fuels made on their own territory, which had attracted criticism from some European governments and campaigners who said it threatened the transition […]