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The Green New Deal, Net-Zero Carbon, and the Crucial Role of Public Ownership
By John Treat, Sean Sweeney, and Irene HongPing Shen - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, November 15, 2019
On September 28, 2019, more than 150 trade union representatives, activists and policy allies from more than a dozen countries came together in New York City for a one-day international conference on “The Green New Deal, Net-Zero Carbon, and the Crucial Role of Public Ownership.”
The conference took place against the backdrop of the massive “Global Climate Strike” actions led by young people in numerous countries around the world, coinciding with the UN “Climate Week” of talks in New York City. In the weeks before those actions, TUED organized a “Global Web Forum” on the #Strike4Climate, and subsequently compiled a list of union statements and actions in support of the strikes.
Framing and Meeting Highlights
The conference program was framed around a number of issues and concerns that have emerged out of recent union-led struggles to both defend and extend public ownership of energy in key countries and regions. Over the course of the day’s proceedings, a number of key themes and broadly shared conclusions emerged, including:
- Investor-focused climate policy is not delivering the energy transition
- Privatization of state-owned electricity utilities has failed—but alternatives exist
- Defending public ownership of energy requires a reform agenda that can drive “de- marketization”
- Confidence is rising to reverse electricity privatization where it has happened
- Defending and reclaiming public energy requires building union power
- The transition must take into account the real development needs of the global South, while contesting carbon- intensive “development as usual”
- There is an urgent need for technical, programmatic work to make achieving the ambitious goals of the Green New Deal possible
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author.
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