extractivism

By Dario Azzellini - Berliner Gazette, October 16, 2023

Dario Azzellini · Sustainable Work from Berliner Gazette on Vimeo.

By Jennifer Kamau - Berliner Gazette, October 16, 2023

Jennifer Kamau · Climate Proletariat from Berliner Gazette on Vimeo.

By Lorenzo Feltrin - Berliner Gazette, October 16, 2023

Lorenzo Feltrin · Convergence of Struggles from Berliner Gazette on Vimeo.

By various - California Environmental Justice Alliance, October 13, 2023

We represent heavily polluted communities throughout the State of California. Our communities border oil refineries, gas-fired power plants, industrial farming operations, fossil fuel extraction facilities, waste processing centers, ports, transportation corridors and other polluting operations. These cumulative sources of pollution cause a wide range of adverse health outcomes in working class communities of color. Our communities share a common fence with facilities and operations that emit toxins, foul smells, and noise and cause nuisance impacting people’s quality of life at all hours of the day and night.

The State of California intends to expand the use of hydrogen as a fuel, and to this end, we offer these guiding principles, which are essential to respect and protect our communities.

The following principles represent our collective values and positions to support communities as hydrogen energy is utilized across the state.

These principles were developed in 10 workshops and learning sessions for environmental justice partners across California between March and September of 2023. The learning sessions examined the current science, including risks, benefits, and unknowns, and shed light on each stage of the hydrogen cycle, including production, delivery, storage, and use. The workshops allowed our organizations to discuss different perspectives, build consensus, and reflect on how hydrogen may impact our communities. 

We adamantly oppose all non-green hydrogen proposals and projects. We insist that new projects protect communities first and do not perpetuate the injustices that polluting infrastructures impose on fence-line communities today. Each stage of the hydrogen life cycle—production, delivery, storage, and end use—can present unique risks and harms to environmental justice communities and to all Californians.

Discussions about building new green hydrogen infrastructure must involve the community, and its members should be meaningfully engaged. Siting green hydrogen infrastructure should also take into account the cumulative impacts of environmental justice communities and the risks associated with hydrogen.

By Mamadou Goïta, et. al. - La Via Campesina, October 2023

African agriculture and food systems are evolving in an increasingly volatile context, impacted by climate change, conflicts, fragile and iniquitous globalised food systems, successive food crises, and unaddressed structural causes. Africa is one of the first victims of existing global inequalities, with a generally subordinate economic position, a limited voice in political decisions affecting the continent and its nations, and an extremely unequal distribution of the costs and benefits stemming from the exploitation of natural resources. In this context, the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), widely denounced by people’s movements around the world as undemocratic and illegitimate, sought to kickstart a global process towards “food system transformation” and urged countries to develop their own “national pathways” for achieving this goal. The Dakar 2 – ‘Feed Africa Summit’ in January 2023, sponsored by the African Development Bank, also enjoined countries to present “national compacts” emphasising private sector investment.

African governments are calling for an end to dependence on food imports. However, instead of supporting peasant agroecology and territorial markets, they often favour a “modernisation” approach, focusing on investment in specialised crops and zones, privileging privatised seeds and so-called modern technologies, relying heavily on foreign private investment and promoting export-oriented value chains. The national pathways designed by African governments within the framework of the UNFSS, like the national compacts presented at the Dakar 2 Summit, could further reinforce this trend. This is why African peasant’s organisations (POs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) have decided to conduct their own autonomous assessment of these developments.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Al Weinrub - Non Profit Quarterly, July 13, 2023

There are two very different (and antagonistic) renewable energy models: the utility-centered, centralized energy model—the existing dominant one—and the community-centered, decentralized energy model—what energy justice advocates have been pushing for. Although both models utilize the same technologies (solar generation, energy storage, and so on), they have very different physical characteristics (remote versus local energy resources, transmission lines or not). But the key difference is that they represent very different socioeconomic energy development models and very different impacts on our communities and living ecosystems.

Let me start by recounting some recent history in California—the state often regarded as a leader in the clean energy transition.

In recent years, California’s energy system has failed the state’s communities in almost too many ways to count: utility-caused wildfires, utility power shutoffs, and skyrocketing utility bills, for starters. Currently, state energy institutions are advancing an all-out effort to suppress local community ownership and control of energy resources—the decentralized energy model.

Instead, they are promoting and enforcing an outmoded, top-down, utility-centered, extractive, and unjust energy regime—the centralized energy model—which effectively eliminates local energy decision-making and local energy resource development. This model forces communities to pay the enormous costs of unneeded transmission line construction and bear the massive burden of transmission line failures.

Using the power of the state to enforce the centralized energy model is at the heart of California’s new renewable energy tyranny. And this tyranny has now spread to the federal level, as substantial public investment is now set to go toward large-scale renewable energy projects across the country. These projects will be controlled by and benefit an increasingly powerful renewable energy oligarchy. Being touted as a solution to what is popularly regarded as the “climate emergency,” this centralized energy model has actually failed to meet our communities’ energy needs, and at the same time has exacerbated systemic energy injustice.

By staff - European Environmental Bureau, July 10, 2023

The 21st century demands global efforts that provide solutions to multiple social and environmental crises that negatively impact economies. Many solutions are available to us, and demand a political will to advance on some existing tools (such as product ecodesign legislation or product bans), and a political discourse to develop new tools (such as energy production limits) that will all potentially result in societal transformation that brings humanity comfortably back within planetary boundaries in an equitable way.

Most of the converging social and environmental crises we are facing are a result of the over-consumption of resources due to unsustainable production and consumption patterns in increasingly unequal societies regardless of the level of development of any given country.

This Position Paper (download file here) delves into the main issues that arise within this context in regard to the Critical Raw Materials Act, and has been written by a multitude of civil society organisations.

The version in other languages:

• Position paper (FR)
• Position paper (DE)
• Position paper (ES)

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Zainal Arafin Fuad - La Via Campesina, July 6, 2023

By Ramona Dominiciou - La Via Campesina, July 6, 2023