energy democracy

By staff - People and Nature, February 13, 2023

“Clean energy transitions” by rich countries of the global north are producing “a new phase of environmental despoliation of the Global South”, states a manifesto published last week by an alliance of social and environmental organisations.

“This decarbonisation of the rich, which is market-based and export-oriented, depends on a new phase of environmental despoliation of the Global South, which affects the lives of millions of women, men and children, not to mention non-human life”, the Manifesto for an Ecosocial Energy Transition says.

Women, especially from agrarian societies, are among the most impacted. In this way, “the Global South has once again become a zone of sacrifice, a basket of purportedly inexhaustible resources for the countries of the North.”

As the rich countries secure supply chains for these “clean” transitions, the web of debt and trade agreements in which countries outside the rich world are caught is tightened.

I hope that social movements and the labour movement in the rich countries will not only sign the manifesto (which you can do here), but also – probably more to the point – think about and discuss what it means for us.

By Peoples of the Global South - Foreign Policy in Practice, February 9, 2023

An appeal to leaders, institutions, and our brothers and sisters

More than two years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic—and now alongside the catastrophic consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—a “new normal” has emerged. This new global status quo reflects a worsening of various crises: social, economic, political, ecological, bio-medical, and geopolitical.

Environmental collapse approaches. Everyday life has become ever more militarized. Access to good food, clean water, and affordable health care has become even more restricted. More governments have turned autocratic. The wealthy have become wealthier, the powerful more powerful, and unregulated technology has only accelerated these trends.

The engines of this unjust status quo—capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, and various fundamentalisms—are making a bad situation worse. Therefore, we must urgently debate and implement new visions of ecosocial transition and transformation that are gender-just, regenerative, and popular, that are at once local and international.

In this Manifesto for an Ecosocial Energy Transition from the Peoples of the South, we hold that the problems of the Global – geopolitical – South are different from those of the Global North and rising powers such as China. An imbalance of power between these two realms not only persists because of a colonial legacy but has deepened because of a neocolonial energy model. In the context of climate change, ever rising energy needs, and biodiversity loss, the capitalist centers have stepped up the pressure to extract natural wealth and rely on cheap labor from the countries on the periphery. Not only is the well-known extractive paradigm still in place but the North’s ecological debt to the South is rising.

What’s new about this current moment are the “clean energy transitions” of the North that have put even more pressure on the Global South to yield up cobalt and lithium for the production of high-tech batteries, balsa wood for wind turbines, land for large solar arrays, and new infrastructure for hydrogen megaprojects. This decarbonization of the rich, which is market-based and export-oriented, depends on a new phase of environmental despoliation of the Global South, which affects the lives of millions of women, men, and children, not to mention non-human life. Women, especially from agrarian societies, are amongst the most impacted. In this way, the Global South has once again become a zone of sacrifice, a basket of purportedly inexhaustible resources for the countries of the North.

By Crystal Huang, Jessica Tovar, Nora Elmarzouky, Ruth Santiago, and Al Weinrub - The Energy Democracy Project, February 2023

The energy systems in place today, in which energy development, control, ownership, and decision-making resides within Wall Street and corporate electric utilities, negatively impact the health and safety of communities, and fail to provide the energy needed to live, especially in the face of climate disaster.

A product of deep collaboration between grassroots organizations, the REFOCUS zine is a graphic tool meant to be shared with community, teams, and anyone interested in understanding the path towards energy justice.

Download the zine to learn how Energy Democracy work is connected from Alaska to Puerto Rico, and build a movement for energy democracy with your community! 

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Kenny Stancil - Common Dreams, January 27, 2023

A new manifesto calls for building "a sustainable social pact for the 21st century" in which "our rights are guaranteed, not based on our ability to pay, or on whether a system produces profit, but on whether it enables all of us to live well together in peace and equality."

An international coalition made up of more than 200 trade unions and progressive advocacy groups on Thursday published the Santiago Declaration, a manifesto for "a complete overhaul of our global economic system."

The undeniably anti-neoliberal document proclaiming that "our future is public" is the product of a meeting held in Chile—the "laboratory of neoliberalism" where Milton Friedman and his University of Chicago acolytes' upwardly redistributive economic model was first imposed at gunpoint by Gen. Augusto Pinochet's military junta.

From November 29 to December 2, more than 1,000 organizers from over 100 countries gathered in Santiago and virtually to germinate a left-wing movement against "the dominant paradigm of growth, privatization, and commodification."

"We are at a critical juncture," the manifesto begins. "At a time when the world faces a series of crises, from the environmental emergency to hunger and deepening inequalities, increasing armed conflicts, pandemics, rising extremism, and escalating inflation, a collective response is growing."

"Hundreds of organizations across socioeconomic justice and public services sectors—from education and health services, to care, energy, food, housing, water, transportation, and social protection—are coming together to address the harmful effects of commercializing public services, to reclaim democratic public control, and to reimagine a truly equal and human rights-oriented economy that works for people and the planet," reads the document. "We demand universal access to quality, gender-transformative, and equitable public services as the foundation of a fair and just society."

By staff - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, January 21, 2023

By Alexis Washburn and Taylor Ward - Just Solutions Collective, January 2, 2023

By Workers' and Peasants' Platform for Water and Energy - Workers' and Peasants' Platform for Water and Energy, December 16, 2022

We highlight that the energy area in Brazil was historically built to be a sector of excellence, even though it has countless contradictions. We have natural bases (water, rivers, oil, sun, wind, among others) that through the work of the workers provide comparative advantages at world level. We have an oil and electricity industry with the potential to become one of the largest sovereign industries in the world and in conditions to meet the priority needs of the Brazilian people. We have a goods and services industry capable of meeting the national content of the energy production chains. We have highly capable workers who produce and supply electricity, water, cooking gas, gasoline, diesel oil, agricultural fertilizers and other derivatives of this immense country. We have production and mastery of built and known technologies, and we have experience in how to treat with dignity those affected by the works and workers in the sector.

However, the evidence on the energy issue reveals a dramatic situation left to the country by the Temer and Bolsonaro governments. The savagery of the prices of cooking gas, fuel and electricity have been transformed into an instrument of rapine on the Brazilian people. Strategic companies have been sliced up, strangled and privatised. The main State structures have been destroyed or are being captured by speculators and rent-seekers.

It is a situation of destruction of energy sovereignty, science and technology and all initiatives for the industrialisation of energy. Even the country's independence and energy security are not guaranteed.

Read the entire statement (PDF).

By staff - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, December 2022

This TUED Working Paper was written to inform discussion at the launch of “TUED South” meeting that took place in Nairobi, Kenya, during October 11th-13th, 2022.

In the weeks following the meeting, it was revised to reflect the discussions that took place. The Nairobi meeting occurred at a time of geopolitical turbulence due to the war in the Ukraine. In many countries, energy has become front page news as prices rise and the major economies rush to secure new sources of gas, coal, and oil. Energy-related anxieties have been accompanied by growing concerns about climate change. The year 2022 produced several headline-making extreme weather events, with devastating floods in Pakistan and in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province together claiming the lives of more than 2,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands of poor people homeless. Europe’s record-breaking heatwave and wildfires killed 16,000 people, and China’s summer produced a heatwave more severe than any in recorded history.

Today it is widely recognized that the impact of climate change on the poorest countries is already more severe than it is for the richer countries, and that inadequate public services are contributing to its many damaging effects.

In 2019 the UN’s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights noted “hundreds of millions will face food insecurity, forced migration, disease, and death.”

Climate change is a huge threat to jobs, livelihoods, and security to workers everywhere. But it is the working class and poor people of the South who will be hit the first and the hardest.

Download this document (PDF).

By Carolyn Fortuna - Clean Technica, November 2, 2022

Big Oil is trying to get climate liability lawsuits moved from state to federal courts, where they believe they’d be more likely to prevail against efforts to make them pay for damaging the environment. Key communities are laying out explicit steps to help move their economies away from coal. Debates are taking place in the tech sector that analyze the social and political changes inevitable to implement renewable energy at scale. These are all dilemmas within what’s called a just transition, and it’s at the core of renewable energy activism.

In its original incarnation, a just transition pointed to workers’ rights, but, over the past few years, the concept expanded into relevance for fields beyond the labor market. A just transition is a future-oriented concept, guided by principles of sustainability and climate justice.

Unfortunately, these concepts don’t always work in concert.

What is a Just Transition, Anyway?

The transition to a clean energy economy is escalating, yet it takes thoughtful planning and robust resources. There are several dimensions to a just transition to move economies and regions away from fossil fuels and towards creating sustainable value and solving issues of climate injustice.

An opposition point of view claims that the shift to clean energy will spur gaps in well paying jobs with good benefits, loss of health insurance, reduced property values, gaps in local tax revenues, unfunded liabilities for environmental cleanup, and uncertainty around future community economic development.

Include social and political participation of affected groups: A just transition is about focusing on support for communities that bear a disproportionate burden of industrial and fossil fuel pollution. These citizens suffer tremendous health effects and are denied commensurate economic benefits. Locations where deep pockets of industrial fossil fuel pollution occur are known as “sacrifice zones,” where toxic air inflicts health problems such as asthma and high rates of cancer. They’re also typically where low income communities of color live and where institutional barriers have afflicted generations of citizens.

Assist workers in unsustainable sectors whose jobs will get lost in the economic reorganization: For many advocates, a just transition encompasses not only support for displaced fossil fuel workers and front-line communities but also a tectonic shift in the design of the economy. For example, workers who engage with toxic materials face the likelihood of illness and death, yet these provide the world with the energy and the materials it needs to recreate energy systems.

Recognize where benefits are accumulated by only a small part of relevant stakeholders: A just transition considers less wealthy countries that depend on fossil fuels for a major part of their GNI. Many advocates are calling upon wealthier nations to help countries with less total domestic and foreign input to switch to clean energy.

Create reskilling and new opportunities for workers whose jobs are lost due to restructuring: A just transition means taking an extractive economy — one that exploits workers and resources — and transforming it into a regenerative economy — one that relies on renewable resources and puts people’s well-being before profit. Just transition initiatives shift the economy from climate polluting fossil fuels to energy democracy. No longer do highways receive mass federal funding; instead, an emphasis on public transit takes place. Costs for discarding waste in landfills skyrockets as do incentives to compost and purchase compostable packaging. Ecosystem destruction halts and ecosystem restoration becomes a huge focus. All of these will create new job opportunities.