Reclaiming Energy | Transnational Institute

21 November

15:00 - 16:00 CET

Date: 21 November 2023 , 15:00 - 16:00 CET
Location: ZOOM
Organizers: Transnational Institute

CorpWatch

Multinational Observatory

ENCO

Debt Observatory in Globalization

The planet is likely to surpass the 1.5C global warming threshold. At the same time, Bloomberg New Energy Finance has recently stated that “the outlook for energy transition (looks) extremely bright.” What’s going wrong?

This webinar will expose the business models of “green” multinationals, alongside the private market model that underpins them. Join us, and find out how these companies are wrecking the climate and preventing policy makers, social movements and communities from building real solutions: public power systems that can democratically decarbonise society.

What to expect?

The webinar will feature the findings of new research on “Green” Multinationals, exposing how supposedly green capital has taken over the energy transition by dictating its pace and blocking climate policies that hamper its profits. Energy producers and technology manufacturers are marketing themselves as “green” to boost their reputations and benefit from public subsidies, grabbing lands, violating human rights and destroying communities along the way. Our investigation of fifteen “green” multinationals conclusively shows that financial returns, not decarbonisation, is their primary business.

Hear more about how the Energy Democracy declaration can contribute to increasingly powerful and connected labour and environmental justice movements. Only in concert, will they force governments to dismantle the for-profit market model and instead ensure that energy workers and users can participate in building truly just, democratic and sustainable public energy systems. Check: https://energydemocracydeclaration.org/

So called transition metals and minerals will be key to delivering the energy transition. That’s why we will hear about what happened at the Thematic Social Forum on Mining and Extractive Economies in Semarang, Indonesia. Because the struggles against extractivism also need to team up to develop modes of production that deliver social and environmental justice. In other words, can there be extraction without extractivism and what would that mean for building public energy transition pathways?

We will also explore the policy practices that continue to derail decarbonisation. A whole mythology now exists that aims to persuade us that the private sector, free markets, cheaper prices and decentralisation can decarbonise the energy system — and that intellectual property rights and trade and investment protection agreements are necessary to facilitate this. These myths keep us from organising towards decarbonised public power systems that are rooted in justice, solidarity and democracy.

Check: https://www.tni.org/en/publication/energy-transition-mythbusters

Following these four succinct interventions, we will have a discussion with two high-profile respondents to interrogate these analyses and developments, while exploring possible convergences.

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