“The climate crisis is too urgent for the U.S. or any country to allow outdated trade rules… to distract us from enacting bold climate policies,” argued one campaigner.

As the Chinese government on Tuesday formally challenged what it termed “discriminatory” U.S. electric vehicle subsidies, climate action advocates warned that antiquated trade policies and international bickering must not be allowed to hamper the urgently needed green energy transition.

“Immediate climate action must take priority over compliance with outdated trade rules that were inked long before governments worldwide began taking the climate crisis seriously,” said Trade Justice Education Fund executive director Arthur Stamoulis in response to the move by Beijing.

Melinda St. Louis, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, agreed that “the climate crisis is too urgent for the U.S. or any country to allow outdated trade rules—written long before governments were taking climate change seriously—to distract us from enacting bold climate policies.”

“Existing trade rules need to be rewritten so that trade pacts can become tools for helping the world advance towards a clean, just, and sustainable economy—but we don’t have time to wait.”

China—which has heavily subsidised its own electric vehicle industry—on Tuesday filed a complaint against the United States at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), taking aim at rules for EV tax credits included in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a sweeping package signed by President Joe Biden in 2022.

“Under the pretext of ‘responding to climate change’ and ‘environmental protection,’ the U.S. has........

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