Speaker(s)

With Pablo Solon, Nnimmo Bassey, Brid Brennan, Francesco Martone, David Fig

In the context of the global systemic crisis, transnational corporations have been at center stage. We have seen banks and credit rating agencies accumulate profits out of the crisis, but the TNCs are also profiteering in food speculation and from the climate crisis. Despite the de-legitimation of the TNCs’ political and economic power by the collapse of the neoliberal model, the TNCs are repositioning and reinventing themselves. They have been the main beneficiaries of government bail-outs, while the people have been left to bear the brunt of the crisis. The wave of austerity measures sweeping Europe and spreading to other parts of the world represent serious threats to peoples’ rights.

The operations of the TNCs in countries of the South are driven by competition and a grab for natural resources and extraction of raw materials using cheap labor and rampant take-over of land and communities' territories. The outcome is the devastation of the lands and natural resources and the destruction of the livelihoods and living conditions of the people in those communities. In terms of environmental effects, the consequences are fatal for our planet Earth.

During the past decades, an architecture of impunity has been built to provide legal protection for TNCs - through Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), Bi-lateral Investment Treaties (BITs), and other mechanisms of the international trade and investment regime. More recently, TNCs are aggressively developing new business enterprises on the financialisation of natural resources and the marketisation of the environmental agenda.

Social movements and civil society organizations as well as affected communities are campaigning against these corporate crimes and responding to the challenge to not only strengthen resistance but also develop strategies to dismantle their power.

Co-organizers: Biowatch, Corporate Europe Observatory, Ecologistas En Acción, Enlazando Alternativas, Fase, Friends Of The Earth International, Hemispheric Social Alliance, Observatorio De La Deuda En La Globalización, Our World Is Not For Sale (Grupo De Trabajo-Tncs), PACS and Jubilee South Americas

Speaker(s)

Susan George

Crisis? Whose crisis? Today we are in the midst of a multifaceted crisis which touches the lives of everyone on the planet. Whether it's growing poverty and inequality or shrinking access to food and water, the collapse of global financial markets or the dire effects of climate change, every aspect of this crisis can be traced to a transnational neoliberal elite that has steadily eroded our rights and stripped us of power. And yet our world has never been so wealthy, and we have, right now, all the knowledge, tools and skills we need to build a greener, fairer, richer world. Such a breakthrough is not some far-fetched utopia, but an immediate, concrete possibility. Our future is in our hands.

President of the Board of the Transnational Institute, Susan George is world renown for her long-term and ground-breaking analysis of global issues. Author of fifteen widely translated books, she describes her work in a cogent way that has come to define TNI: "The job of the responsible social scientist is first to uncover these forces [of wealth, power and control], to write about them clearly, without jargon... and finally..to take an advocacy position in favour of the disadvantaged, the underdogs, the victims of injustice."

"It is a rare and wonderful thing when a book by one of our most trusted intellects arrives at the precise moment in history when it is needed most. All that is left is for us to pick it up and act to change the course of history."
Naomi Klein

Speaker(s)

Praful Bidwai

Irreversible, catastrophic climate change represents the greatest threat to humankind’s survival today.  Yet, the world has failed to reach agreement on this. The ecological crisis is intimately linked through the prevalent iniquitous development model to grave economic, social and political crises in evidence globally.

This unique book has a dual focus and a unique Southern perspective: examining first the impacts of climate change, and the politics of the international climate negotiations; and second, India as an example of an ‘emerging economy’ major polluter, which can potentially both aid or obstruct the fight against climate change. It analyses the role of the new BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) grouping and proposes a way forward out of the current impasse that threatens humanity.

Praful Bidwai is a political columnist, a social science researcher, and an activist on issues of human rights, environment, global justice and peace. He currently holds the Durgabai Deshmukh Chair in Social Development, Equity and Human Security as a Visiting Professor at the Council for Social Development, Delhi. Bidwai is a Fellow of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam.

‘Climate change is an unprecedented threat … and Praful Bidwai is the most valuable guide to its intricacies. Combining cool analysis and passionate advocacy, he knows the hard science, the inadequate players, the petty politics and the dire stakes, not just for his native India but internationally.… You won’t find a better companion for the most important negotiations ever undertaken in the history of humankind.’ Susan George, Fellow, Transnational Institute, Amsterdam