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

Energy companies have sued governments for profits they expect to have lost through decisions such as banning offshore oil exploration. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

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.