10th February 2016 - 115 civil society organisations and networks from across the globe have published a declaration today, calling for bioenergy to be excluded from the next EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED) [1]. The declaration is being submitted to a consultation into the renewal of the directive for 2020 onwards [2].... Read more
Languages: English, French
Organisation: Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Brussels Office, in cooperation with Social Action Nigeria, Berliner Energietisch, Transnational Institute
Contact: Marlis Gensler, marlis.gensler@rosalux.org
Jeremy Corbyn, Socialist and leader of the Pabour Party in the UK, announced in August 2015 that he will nationalise the six big energy suppliers.
"Labour would start buying up shares in the "big six" energy companies under a Jeremy Corbyn government until it owned a controlling stake, the party’s leftwing leadership contender has said. Corbyn, whose support has surged during the campaign and is now narrowly the second favourite to win, wants to nationalise British Gas, SSE, Eon, RWE Npower, Scottish Power and EDF, as well as the National Grid." (Financial Times, 7.8.2015).
We often use the term "Commons" to explain, that we aim at transforming our societal organization. But which realistic concepts do we have at hand to regain the control over our energy system? We need to ask the question of ownership: Shall the energy system pass into public ownership? Shall we fight for it on all levels, at the municipal, regional and national level?
Welcome: Dagmar Enkelmann, President, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung
Inputs:
Facilitation: Tadzio Müller, Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung
Background information:
What we have to expect from Paris/COP21 and what we would really need - Dossier of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung on the climate summit (COP21) in Paris
Strategies of energy democracy. What ownership for a just energy transition? How combat energy poverty? Workshop in Brussels, 1-2 October 2015
Wege der Energiedemokratie. Emanzipatorische Energiewenden in Europa / von Conrad Kunze and Sören Becker. Ibidem : Brüssel, August 2015. Only available in German.
Energy democracy in Europe. A survey and outlook / by Conrad Kunze and Sören Becker. June, 2014
The EU is provoking a global expansion in industrial bioenergy use and the rapid development and expansion of a global trade in biofuels and wood-based bioenergy. Of all energy classed as renewable in the EU in 2012, bioenergy and ‘waste’ accounted for around two-thirds.... Read more
"Lyda Fernanda Forero, who works on economic justice and corporate power at the Transnational Institute in the Netherlands, agrees with the idea of allowing people to make decisions based on knowledge of their own environments.... Read more
The Indian government has attracted widespread opprobrium for cracking down on environmental non-governmental organisations like Greenpeace, maligned for obstructing “development” (read, ecologically destructive growth). But not many noticed its hostile actions against other international NGOs focused on climate issues, particularly coal: Bank Information Centre (which ecologically monitors the... Read more
The Indian government has launched an all-out attack on Greenpeace India by freezing its bank accounts, suspending its registration under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act and unleashing a smear campaign which accuses the group of "anti-national" activities aimed at preventing India's 'development'.... Read more
"I think climate change is a real opportunity for the aerospace and defense industry," said Lord Drayson, then British Minister of State for Strategic Defence Acquisition Reform, in 2009. New markets are emerging.... Read more
Please register through registration@sidnl.org / Websites: http://www.iss.nl; http://www.sid‐nl.org;
http://www.hivos.nl
Programme
10:00 Registration
10:10 Welcome – Lorenzo Pellegrini (ISS, Erasmus University)
10:15 Marjo de Theje (VU University, CEDLA Amsterdam) “The persistence of conflict in Amazonian small scale gold mining”
10:45 Barbara Hogenboom (CEDLA Amsterdam) “Mineral Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility in Latin America”
11.15 Coffee break
11.30 Anthony Bebbington (Clark University) “Neo‐extractivism”
12.30 Discussion
13:15 Lunch
14:00 Daniel Chavez (Transnational Institute, TNI) “State‐Owned Enterprises in the Provision of Public Services and in Industrial Policy”
14:30 Murat Arsel, Lorenzo Pellegrini (ISS, Erasmus University) “Nationalization of extractive industries in Bolivia and Ecuador”
15:00‐15:30 Discussion
Economic development within global capitalism is necessarily a conflictive and contradictory process – it produces ever new sets of winners and losers, unleashing tensions between growth and stability, dynamism and equity, and justice and sustainability.
The ongoing political economic experiment in Latin America, where state‐led developmentalism has come back accompanied also by strong environmentalist ambitions is a case in point. A set of far‐reaching political and constitutional changes, ranging from the election of Bolivia’s first indigenous president to the granting of rights to nature in Ecuador, have been enacted.
Yet, repression of environmentalists and indigenous actors who question the policies of the ‘new left’, expansion of the extractive industries into new sectors (e.g. mining in Ecuador) or new frontiers (e.g. Madidi park in Bolivia) have also been an integral component of the ‘revolutionary’ agendas of these ambitious leaders.
Are we witnessing the emergence of a new political economic system? How realistic is it to expect radical political change – post‐extractivism, adaption of ‘buen vivir’ as a new development paradigm, meaningful redistribution of wealth – from governments hemmed in by not just the vagaries of global capitalism but also (neo‐)liberal notions of citizenship, accountability an democratic governance? Are natural resources functional to new industrial policies?
The aim of this workshop is to engage with such questions by bringing together academics, activists and policy‐makers working on Latin American development politics and policy.
