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may boeve
The World We Want and Need Doesn't Have to Be Imaginary, We Can Make It a Reality
We cannot help fix the climate crisis if the money that we need to fix it is still funding its cause, fossil fuels. But even these we can do, if we organize.
May 15, 2024
This year, over a 12-month period, for the first time, global heating has exceeded temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius. While this doesn’t break the landmark Paris climate agreement, it is a clear warning sign that we need to act fast.
As the world grapples with runaway climate chaos, widespread cost of living increases, geopolitical instability, and violent conflict, it is time for a collective wake-up call: The climate crisis is unraveling against a backdrop of deeply ingrained systems of power that influence which politics and policies move forward.
While these decisions are often made at a level not accessible to everyday people, the implications of these decisions impact our communities, families, and individual lives every day. That’s why it’s important to look critically at the systems that are in place and decide whether they are working in the interest of those bearing the brunt of these crises or just continuing business as usual and making the uber-rich, even richer.
When we scale up renewable energy solutions, we must not replace one broken energy system with another.
First of all, we cannot help fix the climate crisis if the money that we need to fix it is still funding its cause, fossil fuels.
This is especially true since wind and solar energy initiatives are producing record amounts of clean electricity year after year, and getting cheaper every day. Paradoxically, while many claim that money is the missing piece to tackle the climate crisis, the truth is that the money to fund the renewable transition already exists, but we need to redirect it from the fossil fuel industry, and significantly scale up financing for renewable energy projects across the Global South.
While finance seems to be the greatest barrier to the renewables revolution, it also happens to be its greatest opportunity.
The fossil fuel companies who have polluted our planet are still reporting record profits while communities are struggling to keep up with rising temperatures, seas and energy prices, impacting every single aspect of lives. It is the responsibility of our leaders to hold them accountable, impose taxes on their profits, remove subsidies for the production of more fossil fuels, and spend this money on the communities they purport to represent by investing in a future that serves everyone, not just the privileged few.
The reality is also that countries that are historically not responsible for the climate crisis are experiencing the worst climate impacts. It is only fair that historically responsible countries and major polluters like the US, UK and the European Union, for instance, pay their climate debt to climate-vulnerable countries that are at the forefront of climate impacts without the necessary funds for adaptation and renewables development.
We have everything we need — including money — to make this transition come to life for communities everywhere.
Currently, most countries in the Global South spend a lot more money repaying their foreign debts than on addressing the impacts of the climate crisis. Financial arrangements that further entrench debt and dependency are not real solutions and do not address the historical injustices leftover from colonialism and imperialism.
When we scale up renewable energy solutions, we must not replace one broken energy system with another. Renewable energy solutions must uphold the rights of frontline communities and should be produced close to them while not threatening the land rights of Indigenous Peoples and their livelihoods. Investing in renewable energy projects that are community-centered and led and owned by communities, which don’t require kilometers of pipelines, long-distance planning and centralized management, like solar and wind, for instance, will help move us away from the unequal control, access and wasteful use of energy by the rich and privileged.
What we must hold at heart is that when we talk about an equitable energy transition and the resources we need for that, we are talking about more than just arbitrary numbers in the billions and trillions. We’re talking about the bridge that will take us from a world facing climate chaos coupled with extreme inequality, to one in which communities around the world have equitable access to clean, reliable and affordable energy. On top of that communities must get the necessary infrastructure to adapt to the climate impacts we are already facing, and equitable opportunities to thrive economically, and peacefully.
The world we need doesn’t have to be imaginary, we can make it a reality. We have everything we need — including money — to make this transition come to life for communities everywhere, but we must demand more from our governments and they must urgently act in the best interest of the global majority.
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The Call for a Livable, Fossil-Free Future Grows Louder
A just transition away from fossil fuels and into community-centered renewable energy is the only path forward.
Mar 26, 2023
The IPCC’s 6th Assessment Synthesis Report released this week summarizes what we already knew: that the climate crisis, whose visibility has grown more pronounced over every season, is unequivocally happening.
Its root cause? Humanity’s addiction to fossil fuels. Every year that we put off a swift, just transition into a decarbonized economy is a year that we will never get back.
But a better world is possible, and in fact it’s already here.
Over the last decade, renewable energy has become more affordable and more accessible. The global energy crisis is driving a sharp acceleration in installations of renewable power, with total capacity growth worldwide set to almost double in the next five years to account for over 90% of global electricity expansion.
This increase is 30% higher than the amount of growth that was forecast just a year ago, and would see renewables overtake coal as the largest source of electricity generation. This keeps the possibility of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C alive, and highlights how quickly change is possible when accompanied by political will.
This leap towards decarbonization is also being taken by grassroots communities worldwide — the ones who are on the frontlines of the crisis. They have had enough, and they have had the courage to take power into their own hands.
Reflecting on some of the key projects that have been the building blocks for our irresistible world, I think of the Solar XL action.
The Keystone XL Pipeline is a partially built pipeline running from the polluting tar sands in Canada across the breadth of the United States. Its construction has been fiercely resisted by local residents, farmers, and Indigenous people, whose livelihoods have been impacted by the pipeline.
In resisting Keystone XL, they did not just say no — they harnessed their agency, and built solar arrays directly on the proposed path of the pipeline. They disrupted the problem with a solution, creating their own energy in place of a pipeline, one of the world’s biggest carbon bombs.
In Fiji and the Philippines, organizations have delivered training for communities, teaching them how to set up portable solar energy devices called Tek Paks. The program, called Solar Scholars, involves training volunteers who then commit to passing on the training to others, and are provided with the tools and resources needed to do so.
These devices are used as emergency response when climate disasters impact the accessibility and availability of electricity.
The Philippines is a country that has experienced grave climate impacts — most recently, super-Typhoon Odette whose torrential rains and violent winds destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes and impacted millions across the country when it made landfall in late 2021.
Solar Scholars is the kind of solution that creates regenerative positive impacts down the line beyond just energy generation. One anecdote that comes to mind is of a woman in the Philippines who, after undertaking her Tek Pak training, was able to power a refrigerator to keep her and her husband’s daily fish catch fresh for longer, increasing their household income.
Above Machynlleth, a market town in Mid-Wales, two community turbines, 75kw and 500 kw respectively, stand on the surrounding hills.
The turbines are owned by around 200 shareholders and have been generating electricity since 2003, with profits given back to shareholders and funneled into local community schemes.
Amid the financial hardship brought on by the cost-of-living crisis, the scheme has been a vital source of funding for a community hub, food, and outdoor play equipment for local schools.
Community renewable energy projects bring more than just clean power and heat – they create more jobs, build support for change, and help create more resilient local economies and energy systems, reducing carbon emissions and contributing to the national grid while reducing pressures on it in other ways.
While investment into renewable energy is at an all-time high, the reality is that powering up renewables will only have an impact if we power down fossil fuels. We can add as much renewable energy capacity as we like to the mix, but if we’re not eliminating emissions that come from fossil fuel use, we’re not getting anywhere.
A just transition away from fossil fuels and into community-centered renewable energy is the only path forward.
Solutions are a form of resistance, and resistance is a tool for remediation. The rallying cries for a livable, fossil-free future are louder than ever, and the calls for change are getting louder and louder.
While the business-as-usual few remain stuck in the past, the collective imaginations, agency, and creativity of the many are launching us into the irresistible world we deserve.
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Streets Swell With People's Climate Marchers Because 'Our Existence Depends on It'
People are standing up to the climate-denying Trump administration with hundreds of marches around the country and world
Apr 29, 2017
Energized crowds are expected to take to the streets nationwide on Saturday, President Donald Trump's 100th day in office, to protest the administration's regressive environmental policies and stand up for the climate, clean energy jobs, and a fossil-free future.
The Peoples Climate March in Washington, D.C. will feature speakers including a pastor from South Carolina, a nurse affected by Hurricane Sandy, an Indigenous community leader from the Gulf Coast, a student activist from Las Vegas, an Iraq war veteran, a Muslim imam, a local community activist, a labor leader, and a young advocate for low-income communities.
Solidarity and sister marches are planned around the country and the world; as of Saturday morning, events had already gotten underway in Denmark, the Philippines, and elsewhere.
In the U.S., the marches were preceded by a week of action that saw the introduction of ambitious clean energy legislation in Congress; a rally bringing together Indigenous, Black, and Latino communities; and pledges of intersectional support between the labor and climate movements.
"This march grew out of the relationship-building among some of the country's most important progressive organizations and movements," said Paul Getsos, national coordinator for the Peoples Climate Movement, who noted the march "was planned before the election as a strategic moment to continue to build power to move our leaders to act on climate while creating family-sustaining jobs, investing in frontline and indigenous communities, and protecting workers who will be impacted by the transition to a new clean and renewable energy economy."
Under Trump, however, the call has taken on new urgency as his climate-denying cabinet moves to dismantle critical environmental and public health protections while propping up dirty energy like coal and Big Oil.
"On the 100th day of the Trump presidency, the Peoples Climate March will show that our movements are ready to fight for our climate, jobs, and justice," said May Boeve, executive director of 350.org. "While Trump and his crony cabinet rollback hard-won protections of our communities and our climate, we are mobilizing to fight for the bold solutions we need. We will present our vision to replace the fossil fuel industry with a 100 percent clean energy economy that works for all. Today, we march. Tomorrow, we rise united across our communities to make our vision of a just and equitable world a reality."
Added Angela Adrar, executive director of the Climate Justice Alliance: "When our communities are most threatened by climate; the solutions we build must allow us to have control of our resources and the energy we produce in an equitable and truly democratic way."
"They must create meaningful work that allows people to grow and develop to their fullest capacity," she said. "They must allow us to retain culture and traditions from our ancestors and give us the freedom of self-determination we so deserve so that we can thrive. This does not come easy and it must come with resistance and visionary opposition. Our existence depends on it."
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