A1. Favorites

Patty Berne,a Japanese-Haitian person with light brown skin, smiles playfully with love and light shining from their brown eyes. They wear an off the shoulder opalescent blue dress and an amethyst pendant. Their brown hair is pulled back into their signature two buns. Behind Patty is a pink background with radiant red and yellow flowers. Text reads: Remembering Patty Berne. Illustration by Nomy Lam.

On May 29, 2025, our community lost a dear friend and comrade, Patty Berne. Patty was co-founder and longtime Executive and Artistic Director of Sins Invalid and a primary architect of the Disability Justice movement, its 10 Principles, and core practices that center the lives, wisdom, and leadership of disabled queer and trans Black and brown people.

A few words from Movement Generation collective members from the past and present share some reflections on Patty’s beautiful life and legacy (audio version available here):

“I first experienced the gift of Patty Berne as a college student, as we were both members of Students Against Intervention in Central America. It was a bad-ass space of fierce and successful organizing, made possible in so many ways by Patty’s brilliance and visionary leadership. Patty always led with joy, discipline, directness, and tremendous political clarity. They took internationalism very seriously, and pushed us to think and act and care in innovative and necessary ways. Patty was great at getting us to cultivate curiosity, lean into discomfort, and foster our revolutionary learning edges as we did so. And: Patty was funny as fuck. Always. Their irreverence was delightful, refreshing, healing. Thank you Patty, for shining so bright, so true, so potent. ¡Patty Berne, presente!” –Mateo Nube

“What Patty taught me, I can never un-learn: that if capitalism depends on ableism—that industrial production brought with it measuring a person’s worth by how much profit their they can produce—then disability justice requires the end of capitalism. In other words, if we’re committed to a world where all mind-bodies are truly sacred and worthy of care and belonging, then we have to re-organize our relationships around collective care, interdependence, and mutual aid. I am forever indebted to Patty for their friendship, comradeship, and mentorship. I will miss her political brilliance, her artistic production, her always super-fly style. I am so grateful to have recorded a conversation with Patty in what we didn’t know would be their last year of life. If it would do you good to hear her voice, I invite you to listen here.” –Brooke Anderson

“I absolutely 100 percent move more boldly in everything I do since meeting Patty Berne.  Without a doubt they shifted my perspective, approach, and beliefs about my body and all bodies: no body is disposable and our bodies – disabled, queer, crazy, funky- are sexy as fuck. I sometimes forget this about myself, but Patty’s way of pushing with stern care, humor and realness continues to be instructive and inspiring and allows me to experience the worthiness, sensuality, and love for all bodies and all life. Thank you, Patty. I will never be the same and I am grateful.” –Angela Aguilar

“Patty showed me how to move from a place of unapologetic and fierce love. She could say ‘that’s not right and here’s another perspective’ in a way that could help bring someone into their heart instead of shame and defensiveness. Patty did that all with a twinkle in her eye, a flawlessly made-up face, a delightful giggle, and a lightness that made radical change feel imminently possible instead of heavy and hard.” –Michelle Mascarenhas

“Patty took us all under their wing, and for that I am forever grateful. A legend. A teacher. A beautiful human. Patty taught me how to be unapologetically myself. To embrace the complexity of being human at this time on earth, and to turn towards the moment with both fiery rage and the deepest, most expansive love possible. I am a better person, comrade, and leader because of Patty. Rest in MFing power, Patty Berne.” –Ellen Choy

“What I cherish is Patty’s smile and kindness; the fierce conviction and the loving critiques.  Patty was unafraid to grapple with the contradictions of all of our lives and the worlds we are navigating.  She taught me to let go of the fear of mistakes and the violent lie of perfection. She was always here for her communities and I know she always will be.” –Gopal Dayaneni

From July 21 to 25, 2025, thirty regional youth delegates of the Youth Articulation of La Vía Campesina from over twenty countries gathered in Morogoro, Tanzania, for the biannual international meeting. They shared the various struggles and the issues affecting them and made commitments to continue to fight for dignified agrarian policies, agrarian reforms, and an alternative trade framework.

The post Declaration of the Youth Articulation gathered in Tanzania: Building strength to advance our proposals appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

The Landless Workers' Movement (MST) denounces the stalling of Agrarian Reform and demands an effective commitment from the government. Land concentration continues to be one of the main causes of inequality in Brazil, with land being one of the most important assets protected by elites, and its disputes are a driver of constant tension, violence, and attacks on the rights of nature and its peoples.

The post MST Letter to Brazilian society: “Lula, Where is the Agrarian Reform?” appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

In a packed schedule of field visits, lectures, and discussions, LVC delegates studied and observed a wide range of agricultural practices: from family farming at the village level to industrial-scale operations at the county, provincial, and national levels. This diversity offered a comprehensive view of China's current agricultural landscape.

The post China’s Land System and Rural Revitalisation: Notes from a La Via Campesina Field Study appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

The violent interception of the Handala Boat, which occurred while the vessel was sailing in international waters, constitutes a grave violation of international law. It breaches the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which affirms the right to freedom of navigation and prohibits the use of force against civilian ships on peaceful missions.

The post La Via Campesina Condemns the Military Assault on the Handala Boat appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

La Via Campesina expresses its deep concern over credible reports indicating that the Handala Solidarity Boat, currently en route to Gaza, is under drone surveillance—signaling a serious and escalating threat to this peaceful civilian mission organized by international civil society.

The post La Via Campesina expresses grave concern over the safety of the Handala Solidarity Boat and its participants appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Peasants, artisanal fishers, traditional peoples, and rural workers in Brazil face structural challenges that threaten their livelihoods and fundamental rights. Land concentration and agrarian conflicts are exacerbated by the lack of agrarian reform and the privatisation of common lands, leading to violence and impunity.

The post Challenges facing the Brazilian Peasantry: The UNDROP as a Tool for Struggle appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Bangladesh's Daily‑Based Temporary Workers Employment Policy, 2025, introduced by the Ministry of Finance, allows government agencies to hire workers on a daily basis for up to 22 days per month, aimed at filling urgent or essential roles. The Bangladesh Agricultural Farm Labourers’ Federation (BAFLF) has strongly criticized the policy, calling it misguided and harmful to workers’ rights.

The post Bangladesh: Farm Workers Protest Finance Ministry’s Temporary Employment Policy appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

When governments normalize genocide and institutions retreat behind silence, it is the duty of peoples' movements to act. The Handala mission stands as a concrete expression of grassroots determination in the face of institutional failure and global silence.

The post La Via Campesina Joins the Handala Mission to Break the Siege on Gaza appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

While India is in the middle of negotiating a trade agreement with the US, Indonesia has already entered into a deal that grants American agricultural goods duty-free access—moves that farmers say will lead to long-term dependency and harm.

The post US Trade Deals: Peasant Unions in Indonesia and India Sound Alarm, Warn of Erosion of Food Sovereignty appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

"The territorial violence criminalizes struggles, increases persecution, threats, arrests and murders. The dispute in the territories is patriarchal, colonial, LGBT-phobic and sexist. And we are the organizations that have historically defended the territories."

The post Diversities Seminar, Brazil: Rural organizations describe the main challenges in defending the “body-territory” in Latin America appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Peasant youth face abandonment, dispossession, and the structural violence of public policies that deny essential rights such as health, education, food, housing, decent jobs, and access to land. The consequence is clear: inequality is growing, our lands and common goods are being monopolized, and our dignity as peoples is being violated.

The post CLOC – La Via Campesina’s Central American Regional Youth Camp | Statement appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

La Vía Campesina urgently calls on all governments around the world, especially progressive governments and those in the Global South, to act firmly and in a coordinated manner to end the apartheid and colonization imposed by the Israeli occupation regime.

The post La Vía Campesina Urgently Calls on All Governments to End Israel’s Apartheid and Colonial Occupation in Palestine appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

Listen to the audio version >>

Can an alliance of social movements defeat racist legislation and authoritarian takeover? What happened a decade ago in North Carolina provides inspiration for what we need to do in the US today.

In the absence of adequate resistance in the electoral arena, an alliance of popular movements is functioning as the primary opposition to Trump’s authoritarian rule. This movement-based opposition has emerged rapidly and is developing significant power as more and more people see and experience the harm the Trump administration and the MAGA Congress are inflicting on individuals, groups, and society as a whole.

The movement-based opposition is using popular mobilization and nonviolent direct action to contest Trump’s initiatives and build the power to counter them. In an unprecedented and unpredictable landscape, it has developed primarily through experimentation and must continue to do so. However, there are historical examples of movement-based oppositions from which we can learn. The Forward Together movement in North Carolina is one of them.

In 2007, the North Carolina NAACP brought together a wide range of religious, labor, and justice organizations in a People’s Assembly and passed a program that included the primary issues of each group. They began a series of campaign to support local labor struggles, fight the rightwing takeover of school systems, expand voting rights, fight repressive legislation, and roll back a MAGA-style takeover of state government. Their underlying principle was that different constituencies would speak for themselves, but they all would support each other. Their experience illustrates how a movement based outside the electoral arena can nonetheless have a significant impact on government and on the electoral arena itself.

Although a national movement faces problems different from those of a state movement, Forward Together has many lessons for today’s national movement to protect society from MAGA authoritarianism. Forward Together faced a combined attack on democracy and on the wellbeing of people. Many people in North Carolina wanted to oppose that attack, but they were diverse, disconnected, and sometimes divided. The Democratic Party, although it was the official opposition, was not effectively opposing the authoritarian takeover, let alone expanding the realm of justice. Forward Together does not provide an off-the-shelf model, but it does show how an alliance of social movements can use organizing and direct action to change government and society.

Forward Together

NAACP’s Historic Thousands on Jones Street Rally May 23, 2012 | Video Credit: canarycoalition

The story of what came to be called Forward Together is told by William Barber II, minister and then leader of the North Carolina NAACP. (Barber is currently co-chair of the national Poor People’s Campaign.) In 2007 the North Carolina NAACP convened a People’s Assembly with what it called the “fourteen justice tribes in North Carolina.” The assembly, held on Jones Street outside the statehouse, unanimously adopted a fourteen-point agenda representing the concerns of those fourteen “tribes.” It outlined eighty-one action steps. The People’s Assembly became an annual event. The movement it spawned came to be known as Historic Thousands on Jones Street or HKonJ.

HKonJ chose as one of its first actions support of workers at the Smithfield hog-butchering plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, who had struggled for a decade to win a union. The coalition decided to “change the narrative” by “making the workers’ struggle a moral cause for our whole coalition.” Barber wrote that conversations about “fair wages” or “civil rights” could not be reduced to the self-interest of separate groups: “We were engaged together in a conversation about what kind of economy builds up the common good.” The coalition organized clergy and community leaders to make public statements at grocery stores across the state, asking them to stop carrying Smithfield meats. After months of struggle, Smithfield recognized the union and agreed to a contract. The HKonJ coalition’s relationship to the state’s beleaguered unions was solidified as well.

More direct political action followed. A right-wing takeover of the Wake County school board gutted guidelines promoting racial diversity and began to undermine public education. HKonJ held forums to alert the public to what the board was up to and spoke at school board meetings. “Our job was to shift the public conversation,” Barber wrote.

In response, the board banned protesters from its meetings. Barber says, “Like Bull Connor in Birmingham, they set the perfect stage for civil disobedience.” Coalition members were repeatedly arrested for trying to enter the meetings. At the same time, they mobilized voters for the next election. A year later every member of the school board who had tried to re-segregate the schools was voted out, and the right-wing candidate for state superintendent of schools was defeated.

HKonJ’s research indicated that the biggest reason low-income people didn’t vote was because they couldn’t leave their jobs to do so. In 2007 the coalition pressured the Democratic legislature and governor to pass a voting rights law to allow early voting and same-day registration. Then it mobilized its partner organizations for a voter registration and education campaign that added at least 185,000 new voters in the state. In 2008, all fifteen of North Carolina’s electoral college votes went to Barack Obama.

In the 2012 election a well-organized right-wing backlash took control of the North Carolina legislature and elected Pat McCrory governor. It passed new restrictions on voting rights, gay rights, abortion rights, environmental protection, unemployment compensation, medical care, and education, as well as other elements of the right-wing agenda. It passed a redistricting plan so gerrymandered that it was eventually blocked by federal courts as “unjustifiably discriminating.”

A group of college students with duct tape over their mouths filled the legislature’s observation area to protest voting rights restrictions and were arrested. HKonJ decided to follow suit. On Monday, April 29, 2013, seventeen protesters were arrested in the legislative gallery. The movement, soon to be rechristened Forward Together, decided to return in a week. Thus began North Carolina’s nationally publicized Moral Mondays. Over the next three months nearly a thousand protesters were arrested at the statehouse. Eighty thousand people joined the movement’s culminating demonstration. Barber called it a “popular uprising.” Many out-of-state organizations boycotted North Carolina; the NCAA banned holding national championships there.

Rev. Dr. William Barber speaking at a Moral Monday rally. Photo Credit: twbuckner, Wikipedia Commons, CC By 2.0

As the Moral Mondays movement grew, Governor McCrory’s poll numbers fell. Before the 2016 election, Republicans tried to divide the movement, targeting black Christians in particular, through the so-called “bathroom bill” requiring that people use public restrooms matching their “biological gender”—a clear appeal to anti-trans bigotry. Barber and other ministers spoke at church meetings throughout North Carolina, saying that “the fundamental principle of equal protection under the law” was a “constitutional and moral principle” that had to be upheld. They pointed out that the bill wasn’t about bathrooms at all. In fact, it “attempted to codify discrimination, denied all North Carolinians the right to challenge employment discrimination in state court, and overrode the victories of municipal living-wage campaigns.” Once they understood what the bill really did, “workers stood with preachers and LGBTQ activists stood with the business community to oppose the bill.” At the next election McCrory became the first governor in North Carolina history to lose a bid for reelection.

Forward Together eventually became a coalition of 145 organizations representing Christians, Muslims, Jews, nonbelievers, blacks, Latinos, poor whites, unionists, civil rights activists, feminists and environmentalists, doctors and the uninsured, and businesspeople and the unemployed. It represented gay and straight, young and old, and documented and undocumented. This unity was based on a belief that “none of us would be free until all of us were free.” One principle that shaped Forward Together’s actions was simply “showing up to support any group in the state that was standing for justice.” In 2013, Forward Together supported the fight of Planned Parenthood and NARAL against new abortion restrictions. A few years later a hundred people filled a Durham church to demonstrate solidarity with a Durham-raised asylum seeker fighting deportation.

Forward Together sought “powerful images of solidarity” manifested in “daily acts of justice and community building.” Barber writes that “our most directly affected members would always speak to the issue closest to their own hearts. But they would never speak alone.” The movement existed so preachers can “fight for fifteen” and workers can say “black lives matter”; so a white woman can “stand with her black sister for voting rights”; so a black man can “stand for a woman’s right to health care”; so L.G.B.T.Q. folk can “stand for religious liberty”; so straight people can “stand up for queer people”; and a Muslim Imam can “stand with an undocumented worker.”

One journalist described the premise of the movement as a “universalist program” for health care, voting rights, reproductive choice, and higher wages, one beginning in “building coalitions among people whom politics have driven apart.” Amid a welter of issues, the defining common ground for Forward Together was a response to the needs of the poor and vulnerable. As Barber put it, “poor and hurting people were the capstone of our moral arch.”

Real political power

Forward Together Rally, March 27, 2025 | Video Credit: VCU InSight

Forward Together played some of the roles of an opposition political party, drawing together diverse constituencies around common interests, criticizing existing policies and institutions, and proposing alternatives. But it exercised power by direct rather than electoral action. Barber said that “effective work for justice in the real world” requires “real political power.” Yet “the battle, while deeply political, wasn’t fundamentally about campaigns and elections.” More than winning seats in the legislature, it was about “exposing the conspiracy of the governing elite to maintain absolute power through divide-and-conquer strategies” and reshaping “the stories that tell us who we are.” Unlike a political party or lobby, Forward Together eschewed running or supporting candidates for office. Yet it transformed North Carolina politics.

The most obvious application today of Forward Together’s approach lies at the local and state level. Groups in more than two thousand locations in every state participated in the massive Hands Off, May Day, and No Kings Day protests. Forward Together gives one example of ways to draw such people and organizations together into a powerful and effective opposition force. An opposition formed by an alliance of social movements, outside the electoral arena but impacting it through organization and direct action, will be critical for defeating the MAGA juggernaut both locally and nationally.

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The post Movement-Based Opposition: A Successful American Example first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

A Report from the Labor Network for Sustainability, Co-published by ZNetwork.org.
By Jeremy Brecher

A “Solarpunk Berlin” by Alex Rommel

Synopsis

In a few short years, China has become the world’s dominant producer of “Greentech” technology that reduces or repairs harm to the environment. Chinese technology and industrial infrastructure are cheaper and better in nearly every sector of Greentech. Chinese solar, wind, grid, hydro, battery, New Energy Vehicle, and green hydrogen technologies are being adopted in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America at an accelerating pace.

Chinese overseas investments in Greentech are rapidly expanding. While many countries are concerned about the “dumping” of cut-price Chinese exports in their economies, most welcome joint ventures and other forms of investment. Such investments often come with protections for national economies and security.

The United States under President Biden and President Trump has tried to block Chinese Greentech products and investments. President Trump has gone farther, trying to cripple the development of Greentech while trying to expand fossil fuel extraction and burning to make the US the world’s energy superpower, whether in cooperation or in competition with Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the other petrostates.

This strategy is bound to fail, however, because Chinese Greentech is so much cheaper and better than fossil fuel based production. If the US continues to wall out inexpensive Greentech while the rest of the world is converting to it, its fossil fuel industry and the entire industrial ecosystem based on it will lose much of their value – becoming “stranded assets.” The US will lock itself into a high-cost energy infrastructure which will be a large and long-lasting liability for its entire economy.

This new energy reality opens up a strategy for protecting the climate and freeing countries from dependence on fossil fuels and those who control them. By rapidly adopting low-cost Greentech wherever it may come from, climate protectors, fossil-fuel-importing countries, and local communities and governments can reduce their own energy costs and emissions. And they can drive down the value of fossil fuels, thereby rendering the fossil fuel producing countries stranded assets until they are willing to convert to Greentech.

How to Make the Fossil Fuel Powers “Stranded Assets”

There is a specter haunting the fossil fuels powers. As a recent article in The National Interest by two Columbia University energy experts put it,

What is emerging are two competing models of energy and influence—one anchored in the enduring logic of hydrocarbons, the other in the accelerating promise of electrification. At stake is not just the future of energy systems, but the contours of geopolitical power in the decades ahead.

The reality behind the specter is the phenomenal rise of China as the superpower of “Greentech” (sometimes also called “Cleantech”) – technology that reduces or repairs harm to the environment. As BP’s chief economist recently warned, “China is leading the global energy race because of its dominance in building up supply chains for renewable energy and electric vehicles.” Or as a Bloomberg headline put it, “US Will Lose if EU, China Become Clean Energy Buddies.”

Chinese investment and research have so reduced the cost of producing green energy, vehicles, and other technology needed for a Greentech transition that, if they were widely adopted, they would produce disaster for the fossil fuel producing countries, rendering much of their economies as “stranded assets” — assets like coal, oil, and gas that lose their value because they can’t compete with solar, wind, and geothermal energy. Conversely, the widespread adoption of Chinese “Greentech” would move the world far closer to climate safety and free it from the overweening power of fossil fuel companies and countries.

China’s rise as the Greentech superpower is not only a historical fact; it also provides a strategic opportunity for those who want to save the earth’s climate by eliminating fossil fuels; escape domination by the fossil fuel powers; and make affordable climate-safe energy available to all who need it at a reasonable price.

If China, Europe, and other non-fossil fuel countries cooperate to lower the cost of the green transition, they can not only cut greenhouse gas emissions, they can drive down the value of fossil fuels, thereby leaving the economies of fossil fuel producing countries with stranded assets not only in their fossil fuel industries, but in the large parts of their economies that are fossil-fuel based. The result will be lower energy costs for consumers around the world except in the remaining fossil fuel-dependent countries — at least until they are willing to join the Greentech transition.

The world should aim to adopt the least expensive available green energy systems – which today means primarily Chinese technology and industrial ecosystems – as rapidly as possible. We should let the fossil fuel powers suffocate in their own uncompetitive oil, gas, and coal until they are willing to join the rest of the world in going fossil free.

This report draws on many sources, but two have been particularly important. The first is “Green capital tsunami: China’s >$100 billion outbound cleantech investment since 2023 turbocharges global energy transition”from the Australian thinktank Climate Energy Finance. The second is “PetroStates and ElectroStates in a World Divided by Fossil Fuels and Clean Energy” by Columbia University energy experts Tatiana Mitrova and Anne-Sophie Corbeau. Other sources are indicated in the links.

The Chinese Greentech Revolution

According to the Australian think tank Climate Energy Finance, China leads the world in “R&D, investment, innovation, manufacturing, deployment and exports of cleantech” – including solar, wind, batteries, and new energy vehicles (NEVs) –by “an astonishing margin.” Its cleantech investments are more than double those of the US or the EU. f

The cost of electricity to Chinese consumers is barely half that in the US. This is not because sunlight or fossil fuels are easier to obtain there. It is largely because Chinese energy technology is far superior – including high-voltage powerlines, fossil-free renewable energy, and energy-using products like steel and cars. To take one example: Chinese electric vehicle imports to Europe cost 32% less than European EVs in 2023. According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Clean Energy Equipment Price Index, Chinese solar panel and wind turbine prices are down 60% and 50% respectively since 2022.

Chinese technology and industrial infrastructure are cheaper and better in nearly every sector of Greentech and are therefore being adopted in much of the world. As summarized in a report by the Australian think tank Climate Energy Finance:

Wind: China now dominates the global wind industry, in onshore and offshore deployments, manufacturing supply chains, and technology development.

Solar: China totally dominates 80-90% of the technology development and manufacturing supply chains for the global solar industry.

Grid: China has pioneered ultra-high voltage direct current grid transmission projects of well over 1,000km length.

Hydro: China has quadrupled its domestic installed hydro capacity to lead the world at 420GW, four times the second-place US, and now constructs the majority of hydroelectricity dams globally.

Batteries: China totally dominates the entire global battery supply chain. China’s dominance is set to grow massively into 2025 with planned manufacturing plants in Hungary, Morocco, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, the US, Spain, Portugal, the UK, Finland, Sweden, Germany, France, Turkey, and Oman.

New Energy Vehicles: China has become the world’s largest market for new energy vehicles (NEVs), with a 60% global share, and in 2023 became the world’s largest exporter of cars.

Green hydrogen: China dominates electrolyzer [a technology essential for producing low-emissions hydrogen] deployments in 2023, accounting for a 75% global share in 2023.

It is not hard to understand why Chinese Greentech has moved so far ahead. Take EVs, for example. Once China’s auto industry was small and far below international standards. Starting in the 1980s, Chinese industrial policy targeted creation of a domestic automotive supply chain. The government began inviting foreign auto manufacturers to form joint ventures with domestic firms to encourage technology transfers. In a stellar example of sectoral targeting, in 2009 China began to subsidize electric vehicle production specifically. This reflected China’s domestic need for fossil-free energy, the potential for export, severe urban air pollution, and the opportunity to assert global leadership on climate.

Initially far behind other countries in technology and supply chain development, Chinese industrial policy provided direct subsidies to EV supply chain firms. It selected specific technologies to promote, established benchmarks designed to catch up to foreign EV producers, and specified the location of industrial facilities. It invested massively in research on advanced EV production. As part of a recent innovation in the Chinese economy, city governments provided a significant share of investment in EV development.

By 2017 Chinese EVs were good enough and cheap enough to compete in international markets. At that point direct subsidies were supplemented by what was called a “dual credit system.” Car manufacturers were given incentives (“credits”) to increase the percentage of EVs in their domestic fleets and to expand the range and lower the energy consumption of their vehicles. The standards were raised progressively over time. China’s industrial strategy worked: China’s car industry now accounts for 60% of global electric vehicle sales.

Chinese manufacturers now produce EVs that are both cheaper and technologically more advance than US EVs; they have been described as “smartphones on wheels.” According to the German Chamber of Commerce in China, 69 percent of German automotive companies reckon their Chinese competitors already lead them in innovation or will do so within the next five years.

Lying behind the story of Chinese industrial advance, and specifically the rise of its EV industry, is the historically unprecedented Chinese rate of investment. In 2022, China’s level of total investment was more than 40 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) – approximately twice that of the US. This results in substantial part from China’s relatively low wages and limited welfare state provisions. Final consumption accounted for only 53 percent of China’s GDP in 2022. Chinese investment is based on exploiting its people, but that is surely the case for other economies as well.

China’s industrial policy was intentional and coordinated. But China was following the principle of export-oriented development that was the basis of the Western-imposed “Washington Consensus” in the era of neoliberal globalization.

According to the IEA, China continues to invest more than twice as much in cleantech annually as either the US or the EU. From 1995 to 2020, China’s total R&D outlay grew from US$18bn to US$620bn – a 3,299% increase compared to America’s 227%.

This account indicates why it will be extremely difficult for other countries to catch up to Chinese Greentech without drawing on Chinese technology, industrial ecosystems, and investment. The growing recognition of this reality is leading much of the world to decide, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Chinese Greentech goes global

While China initially focused on building up its Greentech capacity to reduce its own dependence on fossil fuels, according to Mitrova and Corbeau, China`s long-term trajectory suggests a pivot: “from hydrocarbon-dependent power to a commanding force in an electrified global order.”

Crucial to this trajectory is foreign investment. The Climate Energy Finance report details China’s new program of “huge, historically unprecedented outbound capital flows encompassing the globe” as “China’s world-leading corporates operating across every key decarbonization sector increasingly ‘go global.’”

Based on our tabulation of investments currently proposed and confirmed, we estimate that Chinese firms have committed more than US$100bn in outbound foreign direct investment (OFDI) across at least 130 major cleantech transactions since 2023. . .The technology and geographic diversity of this investment program is striking, spanning Europe, greater Asia, Africa and South America.

Recent Chinese investments include batteries (European Union), solar photovoltaics (Vietnam, Malaysia) and new energy vehicles (Thailand, Brazil). Spain is emerging as a European hub for EV battery manufacturing, based on strategic partnerships with Chinese companies Stellantis and CATL in a joint venture to build a $US4 billion battery plant in northern Spain.

These investments take varied forms. They include joint ventures; investment in or purchase of companies; building and ownership of facilities by Chinese companies; and leasing or purchasing of technology licenses from Chinese companies.

The Chinese “threat”

China’s industrial policy and domestic investment have led to Greentech overcapacity leading to rapid price deflation. This has led to widespread concern about a flood of Chinese Greentech products being “dumped” at low prices in other countries. In May 2024, long before Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, the Biden administration announced tariffs specifically targeting green products, including lithium-ion batteries, critical minerals, and solar cells. It quadrupled duties on electric vehicles to 100%. It also released a “Foreign Entity of Concern” ruling that vehicle manufacturers would not get IRA tax credits if any company in their battery supply chain has 25 percent or more of its equity, voting rights, or board seats owned by a Chinese government-linked company.

Other countries have also increased tariffs on climate-protecting Chinese imports. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned in March that Chinese exports blocked by the US could be rerouted toward Europe. If Americans won’t buy Chinese batteries, Chinese manufacturers could cut prices even further to attract European customers.

Most countries, however, view Chinese Greentech investments as a very different matter from the import of products. Foreign investment is generally viewed as a positive contribution to national economies, providing employment and building up the national industrial base.

Developing countries, including China, have often encouraged foreign investment, but under conditions like technology transfer, hiring of national personnel, and caps on share of ownership.

Last summer the EU imposed new tariffs on Chinese EVs. But the EU may actually have been engaging in an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” strategy. The purpose of the tariffs, according to an article reporting on “conversations with four diplomats and two senior officials,” is to “use the tariff threat to force Chinese carmakers to come to Europe to form joint ventures and share technology with their EU counterparts.” Indeed, such joint ventures are already developing. Stellantis has an EV joint venture with China’s Leapmotor and Spain’s EBRO-EV has one with Chery to build EVs in Barcelona.

Such joint ventures often include provisions to address economic and security concerns of the host countries. According to a Reuters news story last summer, Italy was reportedly negotiating a deal with China’s state-owned Dongfeng which would ensure that at least 45% of the components in cars produced in Italy are sourced from within the country. Italy was also seeking commitments from Dongfeng to manage customer data locally and source critical components like infotainment units from European suppliers. Given the common interests of China and potential recipient countries in expanding Chinese Greentech investment, there appears to be a good deal of room for negotiating joint ventures that protect the interests of both sides.

Other reasons are sometimes given for discouraging Chinese Greentech overseas investment based on unrelated objections to Chinese behavior. Chinese human rights violations ranging from persecution of Uyghurs to suppression of free speech are sometimes urged as reasons to treat Chinese investment with suspicion. So are allegations that China threatens the security of other countries. While China is far from perfect, such criticisms are rarely applied equally to the superpower that has funded and supplied the weapons for genocide and other war crimes in Gaza, conducted an unprovoked attack on Iran, and threatened to annex Canada and Greenland. Containing the depredations of all superpowers will require a radical change in the world order that applies international humanitarian and human rights law to great as well as lesser powers. Such charges against China provide no basis for avoiding the measures that are necessary to limit destruction of the climate and domination by the fossil fuel powers.

The fossil fuel powers’ energy plan — and why it will fail

In June 2024 John Podesta, senior adviser to Joe Biden on international climate policy, told an interviewer, “The US is now the number one producer of oil and gas in the world, the number one exporter of natural gas, and that’s a good thing.” He also defended the 100% tariff the Biden administration imposed on electric vehicles and other Greentech products from China. After accusing China of deliberately overproducing green goods, Podesta said, “We’re witnessing a renaissance of manufacturing in the US in the green technology space, and will resist unfair trade practices that are going to undermine that investment.” In short, Biden administration policy was to expand fossil fuel production and exports while excluding the increasingly cheaper, superior, and more competitive Chinese Greentech.

Donald Trump is one-upping this program of climate destruction and economic nationalism. He is demolishing the modest US Greentech initiatives, for example by defunding the climate-protecting programs in the Inflation Reduction Act and attempting to block coastal wind projects. At the same time, he is expanding coal, oil, and gas extraction and burning as rapidly as he can as a means to both economic and geopolitical dominance.

Trump’s fossil fuel policy oscillates between global US energy dominance and a fossil fuel imperial alliance led by the US, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. According to Mitrova and Corbeau, these three countries, with about a third of global oil output, now share “a commitment to energy dominance, particularly through fossil fuels,” with none supporting “a transition away from hydrocarbons.”

Why is Donald Trump, despite his vow to make the US the energy superpower, cozying up to what would seem like his competitors, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the Persian Gulf emirates? And why is he doing everything possible, not just to deny the reality of climate change, but to decrease renewable energy, even though it would increase US energy production and could complement rather than impede the development of other fossil fuel energy? The obvious reason is that inexpensive Greentech – most of it Chinese – is an existential threat to either US fossil fuel dominance or to a cartel of major fossil fuel states.

Here is the Achilles heel of all the schemes for global domination by fossil fuel powers. As we have seen, Chinese Greentech is now substantially cheaper and better than fossil fuel production. If the rest of the world decides to use the Chinese-developed Greentech to undercut the role of fossil fuels, all the investments of the “fossil fuel powers” in oil, gas, and coal will be rendered stranded assets.

Stranded assets are assets whose value is reduced before their expected useful lifetime. If fossil fuels and fossil fuel infrastructure lose their value because they can’t compete with Greentech, the companies that own them will also lose much of their value. And this is the case not only for fossil fuel companies, but for the entire economic ecosystem based on fossil fuel. As BPs chief US economist warned,

The U.S. should be worried about trying to sell a gasoline-fueled Chevrolet Suburban that cost six figures. The question is where will American car companies be able to sell a gasoline truck? How is that going to compete in the international marketplace with a $20,000 EV that can charge in five minutes. You need to ask yourselves that question.”

It is not only companies but also countries that can become stranded assets. By doubling down on fossil fuels, the US not only risks creating stranded fossil fuel company or auto company assets; it also locks itself into a high-cost energy infrastructure which will be a large and long-lasting liability for its entire economy. As a Canadian energy expert put it, “The U.S. and Canada 100% tariffs on China’s EVs, batteries and components will boomerang regarding a growing innovation gap and legacy automakers’ competitivity in critical global markets.”

The vulnerability of the fossil fuel industry is not just something for the distant future. According to a paper from the Carnegie Endowment, a much bigger concern than the effects of tariffs for the U.S. oil and gas industry is “the collapsing oil price.”

WTI Crude, a key benchmark price, has fallen to about $60 per barrel in mid-April, its lowest level since 2021. Amid fears of a global recession, traders are worried that there won’t be enough demand for their product. These prices are lower than the minimum level they need to make drilling new wells profitable, according to their responses to a Dallas Federal Reserve survey.

According to the IEA, oil production will outstrip demand from now until at least 2030. “Lower oil prices and demand expectations are set to result in a 6% fall in upstream oil investment in 2025,” the first year-on-year decline since the Covid slump in 2020 and the largest since 2016. Global refinery investment in 2025 is set to “fall to its lowest level in the past 10 years.”

“A time-critical opportunity”

Investment in Chinese Greentech is expanding in most parts of the world – with the notable exception of the US, Russia, and other fossil fuel producers. The price of fossil fuels is already falling, largely due to their inability to compete with the falling cost of Greentech. But to protect the climate, liberate countries from fossil fuel dependence, and reduce the hegemony of fossil fuel powers, the implementation of Greentech and the collapse of fossil fuel industries needs to proceed much faster. According to the IEA, “The annual investment required in renewable power still needs to double to achieve a tripling of installed renewable capacity by 2030.” This needs to be accompanied by rising spending on “grids, storage and other forms of flexibility” to ensure “secure and cost-effective utilization of this capacity.” Spending on efficiency and electrification needs to “almost triple” within the next five years to deliver a 4% annual energy intensity improvement by the end of the decade.

The Climate Energy Finance report lays out a powerful vision of how this can happen. It notes that there is an “under-deployment” of Chinese low-cost cleantech production capacity. But there is a “time-critical opportunity” to change that through a “faster rollout of decarbonization technologies across the globe.” China’s research and development and manufacturing scaling-up, which have slashed the cost of green technologies, are “the key enabler of accelerated global decarbonization.” And that is “an existential necessity” as “the climate challenge escalates” and “for nations to secure their energy independence.”

The global adoption of Chinese-type Greentech can be accelerated by deliberate action. Three forces in particular are positioned to accelerate it and have a strong interest in doing so.

The first and most obvious is China. China has a strong interest in encouraging the adoption of its Greentech around the world. Foreign direct investment is “a key strategic pillar” of China’s project to “globalize its footprint, extend its geopolitical influence, circumvent tariffs, secure its supply chains, and build new and developing domestic markets for its massive output of cleantech production.” It is not yet evident how much China will pursue narrow commercial or geopolitical interests. But it is in the interests of the rest of the world to make a constructive role the most attractive course for China.

While in the era of polycrisis no great power’s policy can be reliably predicted, China has indicated an openness to such an approach. In a directive sent to Chinese automotive companies early in 2024, the Ministry of Commerce said firms should build an industrial supply chain system “jointly built and shared by all parties.” China can contribute to global decarbonization by continuing its amazing progress in Greentech; making it available to the rest of the world on mutually beneficial terms; and helping develop global policies that encourage polycentric independence.

The global climate movement can also be a key player in promoting the rapid expansion of Greentech worldwide. This does not mean that the movement must give up its independence and become “pro-Chinese”; in fact, its informed and evenhanded criticism of all parties that affect the climate remains crucial for climate progress. But it can fight in every arena for the use of the best and cheapest available Greentech and for investment regimes that make this attractive both for the Chinese and for all countries that want to transition off fossil fuels.

Fossil fuel-importing countries form a third major force for using Chinese Greentech to replace fossil fuels. According to the IEA, there has been rapid growth worldwide in spending on energy transitions over the past five years. Some 70% of that increased spending came from net fossil fuel importers. Countries that are dependent on imported fossil fuels have an overwhelming interest in using Chinese Greentech and investment to make a rapid transition off fossil fuels. As Mitrova and Corbeau put it, “For any country seeking to decarbonize (unlike the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia), China is an indispensable partner.”

While there is a reasonable concern that China may use dependence on its technology and investment to exercise undue influence, in the emerging polycentric world countries can resist unilateral dependence through a policy of “polyalignment,” cooperating with many different countries in different arenas. They can also negotiate arrangements with China like technology transfers, limits on foreign personnel, and caps on share of investment in joint ventures that protect national interests and provide a pathway to greater independence.

The need for such cooperation is particularly essential for developing and emerging countries. Africa accounts for only 2% of clean energy investment despite having 20% of the world population. China’s special envoy for climate change stated in June 2024 that China’s investment into technology innovation and manufacturing had slashed green energy costs globally, and that it stands ready to collaborate with developing countries to help them to decarbonize. Nearly half of China’s exports of solar, wind, and EV and battery products already go to the Global South.

How fast can this go? In 2023, Pakistan’s entire power generation capacity was 46 gigawatts. In the last two years it has installed 40 gigawatts of new solar capacity, based largely on imported Chinese solar panels. According to the IEA, Chinese solar exports to developing economies surpassed those to advanced economies in early 2025.

China, recipient countries, and investors can provide much of the needed capital. But this process can be greatly accelerated by the development of an international fund to finance the use of Chinese Greentech in the rest of the world. Call it an international “Fossil-Freedom Investment Fund.” Its purpose would be to support installation of the cheapest and best fossil-free production where it contributes most to global climate and development goals. In most cases that superior production model will be Chinese. Ideally it would be housed within the UN system, but it could alternatively be freestanding or part of some other international organization.

Push the River!

The urgent, large-scale adoption of Chinese Greentech can be fought for in the arenas of national policy, global cooperation of non-fossil fuel countries, and local and sub-national governments and communities.

In national arenas, those seeking climate protection, national independence, and affordable energy can unite around a program of rapid adoption of Chinese Greentech through governmental economic guidance, joint ventures, technology transfers, and sub-national and community initiatives. These can all incorporate negotiated provisions for economic development and national independence. As the Climate Energy Finance report puts it, there is

Enormous potential for bi- and multilateral partnerships and collaborations on innovating and building new and emerging future-facing energy transition industries, as nations leverage Chinese capital and expertise in localized contexts to value-add domestically and derive mutual benefit. Recent announcements in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Hungary and Brazil all illustrate a potential game-changing shift in China’s strategic direction to better ensure more sustainable win-win collaborations.”

In international arenas, coordinated policies could greatly amplify and accelerate the adoption of low-cost Greentech. This could take place through a tacit alliance of non-fossil-fuel-producing countries, or through an international “grand bargain” establishing a Fossil-Free Development Pact. According to the IEA, “a growing finance gap in developing economies points to a larger role for international sources” combined with “the development of domestic capital markets.” I

There could be a role for international financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF, although so far they largely appear to toe the line of the fossil fuel powers. The BRICS+ formation also might play a role, but it includes the major fossil fuel powers Russia and Saudi Arabia. The UN could well play a major role, identifying common interests and developing strategies and policies that could win widespread acceptance – at least among the non-fossil fuel countries. There might also be a role for an alliance of developing countries aiming to ensure that programs adequately address those most in need.

Local communities and sub-national governments can also act on their own initiative in cooperation with, or even in opposition to, their national governments. CNN reports that the incredible increase in solar energy in Pakistan, for example, has occurred “largely in the absence of large-scale government solar spending.” According to Mustafa Amjad, program director at Renewables First, an energy think tank based in Islamabad, “It was essentially the people forcing markets to import more solar panels.”

How do people in fossil fuel countries fit into this picture? Even in fossil fuel countries, local communities and sub-national jurisdictions may be able to circumvent the sometimes-porous national import restrictions to access the cheapest and best Greentech, wherever it comes from. They can launch campaigns to demand that national governments stop blocking their access to low-cost Greentech – campaigns that can win wide support on economic as well as climate grounds. They can install low-cost, high-quality Greentech in their venues. They can be part of the “Green New Deal from below” movement that is installing Greentech with or without the support of national governments.

Climate advocates in fossil fuel countries can loudly proclaim the devastating effects of fossil fuel dependence. They can truthfully say that their countries’ romance with fossil fuels is catastrophic not only for the climate, but also for the future of their national economies. Every dollar spent on fossil fuel development is a dollar more that can become a stranded asset. By promoting dependence on fossil fuels, their governments have slowed or even reversed the transition to climate safety — and they have doomed their national economies to become stranded assets. Climate advocates can make the demand for Greentech a crucial part of the resistance to Trump, Putin, and the Middle Eastern oil autocrats.

The need for global cooperation among non-fossil fuel powers to promote rapid proliferation of low-cost, high quality Greentech is increasingly recognized. According to a recent article in the Guardian,

Many experts believe the only prospect of staving off climate breakdown is for China, the EU, the UK and other major economies to form a pro-climate bloc alongside vulnerable developing countries, to counter the weight of US, Russia, Saudi Arabia and petrostates pushing for the continued expansion of fossil fuels.

Simply adding Chinese Greentech to the existing world order will not be sufficient to solve the problems the world faces; that will require many additional forms of economic, social, political, and technological change. But tacit large-scale cooperation, or even a Greentech “grand bargain” among Europe, China, and the developing and emerging countries, could turn the fossil fuel great powers – notably the US, Russia, and Saudi Arabia — into stranded assets. It could crash the economies of the fossil fuel powers, provide massive development for countries exiting the fossil fuel economy – and radically reduce the destruction of the global climate.

 

A Report from the Labor Network for Sustainability, Co-published by ZNetwork.org.
A shorter piece derived from this report was published in Foreign Policy in Focus.

Jeremy Brecher is a co-founder and senior strategic advisor for the Labor Network for Sustainability. He is the author of more than a dozen books on labor and social movements, including Strike! Common Preservation in a Time of Mutual Destruction, and The Green New Deal from Below.

The mission of the Labor Network for Sustainability is to be a relentless force for urgent, science-based climate action by building a powerful labor-climate movement to secure an ecologically sustainable and economically just future where everyone can make a living on a living planet.

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