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Global Looting – A Snapshot

A background paper (available on request) details the stark divide between rich and poor nationally, regionally and internationally, as value has been progressively extracted over the past few decades from ordinary people.

Comments on California Air Resources Board White Paper on Sector-Based Offset Credits

In autumn 2015 California's Air Resources Board invited comments on its White Paper entitled “Scoping Next Steps for Evaluating the Potential Role of Sector-Based Offset Credits under the California Cap-and-Trade Program, Including from Jurisdictional 'Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation' Programs ”.

Both the White Paper and The Corner House's submission on it are available here.

It Is Time to Create "Annex Zero"

During 20 years of UN climate negotiations, countries classified according to the UN climate convention as Annex I and II have prevented specific and binding actions to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, the root of global warming. The international Oilwatch network is proposing a new Annex – Annex Zero – of the Indigenous Peoples and nations, provinces, states, sub-national regions and localities that actually are doing something to keep fossil fuels in the ground, and is collecting commitments from like-minded people who would like to be part of Annex Zero.

Questioning the Energy Transition

What is an energy transition? Usually the term signifies a shift away from fossil fuels and the technologies that require them. The question that naturally follows is: how is this shift to be financed? This short paper for the Spanish e-newsletter ECOS outines some of the pitfalls associated with this way of looking at climate and energy issues. It argues that it may be helpful to take a step back and begin with a different set of questions: What is energy? Is energy what we really want? Or do we perhaps want to open ourselves to different ways of organizing nature?

Paths Beyond Paris

The main focus of the December 2015 climate negotiations in Paris, as of previous climate summits, is on protecting and advancing the interests of large corporations and banks. This booklet aims at helping to build stronger, more diverse and radical movements that can not only take on the root causes of global warming, but also engage successfully against the counterproductive “solutions” advocated at such conferences.

What is the 'Green' in 'Green Growth'?

"Green Growth" is not about solving ecological crises but rather about creating new opportunities that business can take advantage of while diffusing responsibility for the crises. It is full of contradictions and resistances to it are inevitable.

"Nigger" and "Nature"

Classically, environmental racism is defined in terms of the racialized distribution of pollution. But it's also about the ways people, ethnic groups, nature and pollution are co-defined in the first place. This aspect of environmental racism is perhaps even more visible in forests than elsewhere, argues this piece from the World Rainforest Movement Bulletin, available here in English, French and Portuguese.

A Spanish-language version of the article is also available from The Corner House upon request.

Energy Transitions

This public lecture raises questions about the direction of mainstream discussions on energy, technology, finance, accumulation, and organising.

Energy and Climate as Labour Issues

It is critical to recognise that energy is a labour issue if the shift away from fossil fuels is to do more than just help elites find new tools for exploiting the majority world.

Licensed Larceny

Inequality is as much a problem of wealth and the rich as it is of poverty and the poor. Licensed larceny is a proxy for how effectively elites have constructed institutions that extract value from the rest of society, for example, through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to build new infrastructure. How might social justice activists best respond? What oppositional strategies unsettle elite power instead of making it stronger?