capitalism, colonialism, and fascism

By Alberto Silva - La Via Campesina, July 6, 2023

By Rhiana Gunn-Wright - Hammer & Hope, Summer 2023

I’m an architect of the Green New Deal, and I’m worried the racism in the biggest climate law endangers our ability to get off fossil fuels.

This summer, the earth raged. Fires in Maui and Canada, floods in Delhi and Beijing, heat everywhere — this is the beginning of the climate impacts scientists have long predicted, and the U.S. is unprepared in terms of everything from infrastructure to public health. And if I’m honest, I raged, too. Never in my life have I wished more to be a cyclone, blowing away everything in my path, or an earthquake, shaking everyone to their core until they take seriously the concerns of Black and Indigenous frontline communities.

August marked a year since the Inflation Reduction Act passed, arguably the most significant climate legislation in U.S. history. But the racist compromises and the marginalization of Black people and their demands that facilitated the bill’s passage have seeped into the climate movement, sowing division and narrowing discourse in ways that not only threaten to keep Black people at the bottom of a new green economy but also undermine efforts to address thornier issues, such as who owns energy resources or how to navigate conflicts about resource distribution and land use, questions that money alone cannot answer.

By Staff - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, May 9, 2023

Last week, we looked at the Boric administration’s launch of the National Lithium Strategy, the creation of a National Lithium Company, and some initial responses by trade unions. In this bulletin, we’ll highlight clips of interviews from diverse trade union perspectives on the role of the labour movement in the lithium sector. 

By Rachel Rose Jackson and Adrien Tofighi-Niaki - Corporate Accountability, May 2023

This exposé brings into question Chevron’s proclaimed climate action and ‘green’ image. Analysis of the activities associated with Chevron’s ‘net zero’ climate action plan raises significant concerns about whether its ‘climate action’ is displacing the needed emissions reductions to avoid climate catastrophe, spurring harm to communities and ecosystems, and further hindering the likelihood of meaningful climate action globally.

Key findings this research yielded:

• More than 90% of the carbon offsets Chevron has retired through the voluntary carbon market to ‘cancel out’ its emissions seem to be worthless— presumed ‘junk’ until proven otherwise.
• The technological ‘low carbon’ schemes appear to be failing to capture the emissions promised, in some cases missing targets by as much as 50%.
• A major proportion of the schemes it’s investing in as part of its ‘net zero’ plan are linked to claims of local community abuse, environmental degradation, and/or may even be fueling further emissions. Almost all of the harm claimed to have been inflicted is on communities in the Global South.
• Chevron’s ‘net zero’ pledge—even if fully implemented to the greatest effect without causing harm—overlooks 90% of the total emissions associated with its business practices.
• Chevron is ignoring the scientifically founded need for a fossil fuel phase out, projecting emissions for 2022-2025 equivalent to that of 10 European countries during a similar period.
• It invests millions annually to manipulate the political will for climate action, seeking to shape climate policy to its will.

It’s imperative that shareholders, policymakers, and the public see Chevron’s green claims for what they are—greenwashed destruction. As this exposé illustrates, Chevron appears to be continuing its legacy of preventing, not promoting, the legally binding regulations, the rapid deployment of real solutions and the fast track to Real Zero emissions that needs to happen to avert climate catastrophe.

Download a copy of this publication here (link).

By Mark Fiore, et. al. - Amazon Watch, April 26, 2023

By Roberto Lobos and Horacio Fuentes - Constramet, April 2023

President Gabriel Boric presented his National Lithium Strategy, the great absentee in his speech were the workers of Chile, and we can not fail to point out our concern about it. This is why we want to express our opinion on the national chain and express some of the ideas of the workers' world.

In the more than twenty minutes that the President's speech lasted, several questions remained for the world of labour. The decision to move forward with the creation of a National Lithium Company, a campaign promise cast into doubt less than a week ago by the same government team, was welcomed. Yesterday's position, much more in line with the sentiments of the workers, is weighted for its positive value. It is clearly a decision that will have to be defended against the more neoliberal positions, which will oppose the strengthening of the state, which for us still needs to be delimited and clarified in greater depth.

The decision to transform Chile into the "main Lithium producer in the world" is an important bet; accompanying the energy transition process together with Green Hydrogen is part of the strategic development plan that CONSTRAMET and Plebeya have been working on, together with the need to discuss the current situation of copper in Chile in terms of the new energy matrix of the contemporary world-system. We highlight the decision to participate through the State in the entire production process by means of a national company, which is the only possible way towards redistributive economic growth.

With regard to exploration, exploitation and value addition from a "virtuous public-private partnership", there are several questions that plague us. Starting with the content of the link itself. Any process of dialogue between the state and the private sector must include the participation of workers. The greater the participation of the social world in sovereign decision-making in our country, the greater the strength of the public world in the negotiation process, the same for Codelco, today weakened to carry out the plan presented.

By Cuevas Zambrano and Staff - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, April 2023

Cristián Cuevas Zambrano is a trade union leader and activist of the Chilean left. He is currently director of the Federation of Mining Workers Fetramin and Spokesperson of the National Coordination Committee of Codelco's contractor workers. Previously he was one of the founders of the Confederation of Copper Workers CTC and was its first President for six years. In addition, he was a leader of the Executive Board of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores CUT Chile.

TUED: Some analysts have taken issue with the characterisation of a "nationalisation" of lithium with historical parallels to the nationalisation of copper. They say it is NOT a classic expropriation but a public-private partnership in which the state-owned company collaborates with the capital. Could you clarify this characterisation for us?

Cristian Cuevas (CC): Nationalisation is a concept that is commonly used to define a process of rescue or expropriation of productive activities in the hands of national or international private capital. This occurred with Law 17.450, promoted by President Salvador Allende, which expressly stated that "the state has absolute, exclusive, inalienable and imprescriptible control of all mines, meadows, metalliferous sands, salt flats, coal and hydrocarbon deposits and other fossil substances, with the exception of surface clays.

The spirit of Allende’s law was aimed at advancing our sovereignty and economic independence, which was completely disregarded during Pinochet's Civil-Military Dictatorship with the enactment of a Constitutional Organic Law that allowed mining concessions to private companies.

However, the Pinochet government issued a supreme decree decreeing lithium as a non-concessionary product given its strategic character in defence (base material that allows the creation of nuclear fusion). Therefore, the Boric administration’s announcements regarding the creation of the national lithium company are intended to allow the State to reclaim the sector and enter into the process of production and development of products made from this raw material.

TUED: In his announcement, Boric stated that the National Lithium Company will articulate public-private partnerships. What are the expected consequences of such a public-private partnership arrangement? What role should trade unions play in developing an alternative?

CC: President Gabriel Boric's announcement reflects the Government's inability to confront the national and foreign business sectors that seek to profit from this important mineral resource, the consequence of which is that the State will not capture for itself 100% of the value generated by lithium, handing the private sector a very good deal. Moreover, this government's surrender is reflected in the declarations of the Minister of Finance Mario Marcel, who only a couple of days ago pointed out as feasible the possibility that some salt flats could be fully exploited by the private sector.

The role that some trade unions have played through public statements, they have come out to reject this public-private partnership because it harms the interests of the State of Chile. However, the weakness of the Chilean trade union movement and the obsession with the CUT is a major constraint for the mobilisation of workers and society in defence of lithium and our common goods.

By Collin Rees, Allie Rosenbluth, Valentina Stackl, et. al - Oil Change International, April 2023

This report examines the gas certification market, specifically one of the current industry leaders, Project Canary. We raise serious concerns about the integrity of gas certification and so-called “Responsibly Sourced Gas” (RSG). Our investigation, which included field observations of oil and gas wells in Colorado monitored by Project Canarya, exposed significant shortcomings in its operations and claims.

• Project Canary monitors consistently fail to detect pollution events: Earthworks’ trained oil and gas thermographers captured alarming evidence of Project Canary monitors failing to detect emissions in the field. The seven-month survey found that Continuous Emissions Monitors (CEMs)b failed to capture every significant pollution event detected with Optical Gas Imaging (OGI) cameras. Our observations suggest that the company is misrepresenting the capabilities of its technology – a concern echoed in the testimony we gathered from several industry experts – and the underlying data behind certified gas.
• Greenwashing: Project Canary’s marketing aggressively positions its certification services as a conduit to a ‘net zero’ emissions world. Its CEO has openly discussed fixing the gas industry’s “brand problem.” In doing so, the company appears to be aligning itself with gas industry lobbyists and pushing the concept of ‘net zero’ to new levels of incredulity, which risks sabotaging rather than serving global climate goals. The company is pushing a false narrative that methane gas is an energy source compatible with climate goals as long as it is certified as being produced below a certain methane threshold.
• Lack of Transparency: Despite claims of ‘radical transparency’ and third-party verification, there is limited access for regulators, academics, or the public to the data generated by the certification process. Given the evidence that monitoring may not be reliable, there is clear justification for greater scrutiny from regulators, scientists, and concerned citizens.
• Conflicts of Interest: Evidence suggests that a key Project Canary DIrector and Advisory Board Members have direct financial interests in the same gas companies it certifies.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Ashley Kosak and David Klein - System Change not Climate Change, March 22, 2021