Clean Futures

GreenCities

roman September 10, 2020

Reprinting the Adelaide Green Cities Handbook

The original Green Cities Handbook was first published at the end of May, 1991 by FoE Nouveau.

It as meant to be a discussion starter on how we might change cities to be better for people and the environment.

It was published a year before the Ecocity 2 conference held in Adelaide, and was inspired by ideas from Peter Berg (Planet Drum Foundation), Richard Register (from Urban Ecology in the US, convenor of the first ecocity conference), and Peter Newman, who identified the benefits of a low energy, car-free city.

Paul Downton, architect of Christie Walk, a fragment of eco-city, was involved with the Green Cities Project team, comprised of students from the Mawson Graduate Centre of Environmental Studies at the Uni of Adelaide.

The Handbook has been out of print for the last two decades, and the only copies available were photocopies of photocopies. Adelaide Friends of the Earth decided they would reprint the original, as a start to revising and updating the handbook for the new millenium. We scanned the original copies, OCRed the scans, then edited and corrected the resultant text. We’ve tried to format it similar to the original, as close to the 1991 version as possible. Some things have changed since it was published, but a lot of the information in the Handbook is still relevant.

We invite you to peruse the original, and share your thoughts on how we might improve and update it. Adelaide FoE will be holding a number of workshops to discuss the update: let us know if you’re interested in getting involved.

View the reprint here: GreenCities Adelaide draft

Clean Futures, Climate, FoE, Green Cities

Principles for a Just Recovery from the COVID-19 crisis

roman September 3, 2020

from FoE International 25 August, 2020

The COVID-19 crisis is the result of an economic system that prioritises profits over peoples’ rights and the environment.

The systemic, inter-related socio-ecological crises we face — climate, biodiversity, food, water, economic and care — and this global coronavirus pandemic share the same root causes: a capitalist, patriarchal and racist system designed for capital accumulation and neoliberal, corporate-led globalisation.

This is why Friends of the Earth International believes that a “just recovery” built on environmental, social, gender and economic justice is urgently needed to comprehensively address the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis.

Recovery does not mean going “back to normal”. This is the time to prioritise the sustainability of life, peoples’ rights, and the protection of livelihoods and the planet.

We propose four principles for a just recovery:

1. Abandon neoliberalism and austerity and immediately put in place policies and measures founded on justice, recognising ecological limits.

The State must play a fundamental role in guaranteeing peoples’ rights and environmental justice.

Public recovery packages must:

Support people directly, first of all indigenous peoples, black and afro-descendant communities, people of colour, migrants, women at the grassroots, and the working class.
Include policies for the redistribution of wealth, women’s autonomy, tax justice, and specific support for small businesses, as well as pathways away from extractive industries and fossil fuel dependence, including support for workers to transition to new jobs.
Not pay for corporate financial loss with public money or bailout transnational corporations, especially those most responsible for systemic crises such as fossil fuel and mining companies, agribusiness, airlines and companies based in tax havens.

Governments must:

Stop harmful trade and investment negotiations, particularly Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) cases.
Commit to an international legally binding treaty on transnational corporations with respect to human rights.
Undo neoliberal reforms that have dismantled working class rights, for example by reversing the privatisation of social security by financial capital.

2. Recovery measures should be built on and enhance multilateral co-operation and internationalist solidarity.

Internationalism across movements and borders will help to build collective responses to this crisis. Internationalism means a common understanding and analysis of all forms of oppression, their interconnectedness as well as the need to tackle them all, globally.

International regulations must prioritise peoples’ rights and environmental, social, gender and economic justice. Countries must create policy space in which to address the root causes of the systemic crises. This means:

All Global South debt must be cancelled, and the principle of climate reparations and ecological debt applied. The Global North and international financial institutions must provide new public finance for the Global South, in the form of non-refundable grants.
Governments must work together to regulate the financial sector, prevent speculation, and stop financial and capital flows from Global South to North.
Any treatment including vaccinations for COVID-19 must be made available to all under the same conditions, without patents or other Intellectual Property Rights.
The primacy of human rights and peoples’ rights over trade and investment agreements must be enshrined in international law.
Economic blockades and occupations that clearly violate international humanitarian and human rights law (such as in Cuba, Palestine and Venezuela) must cease.

3. Strengthen democracy and protect human rights and peoples’ rights.

Democracy must be defended and strengthened through empowering peoples’ participation. Politics must be reclaimed, by demanding that it ensures peoples’ rights and the protection of nature. We must come together to ensure:

The health crisis does not serve as a cover for advancing big polluters’ and neoliberal corporate agendas, including further deregulation.
Peoples’ rights are protected at all costs, including the right to voice opposition, raise criticism, and protest. The criminalisation of social movements, organisations and communities must end.
An end to the erosion of women’s autonomy and rights over their lives and bodies is stopped.
An end to right wing and oppressive governments and their use of the covid crisis to increase militarisation of societies and territories and impose surveillance tactics and techniques.
The right to freedom from violence is fulfilled, especially for women, black and afro-descendant communities and people of colour, LGBTQ people, and defenders of territories.

4. Governments must respond to the multiple systemic crises—of the pandemic, inequality, climate, food, biodiversity, and care—and their root causes, by pursuing a transformative system change agenda.

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed how the destruction of ecosystems facilitates the spread of pathogens that affect our health. A just and healthy recovery means responding to the climate change crisis and the loss of biodiversity, forests and other ecosystems worldwide.

This means:

The collective rights of peoples must be recognised, implemented and respected, in order to maintain their age-old practices of collective management of territories.
A complete transformation of the food system away from industrial agriculture towards food sovereignty. Support for peasant, family and artisanal producers, building up national and local food supplies, and shifting public policies and subsidies away from corporate farming towards agroecology. Genuine agrarian reform, that gives peoples ownership and control over their seeds, land, water, knowledge.
Responding to the COVID-19 and climate crises simultaneously, applying the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities to move away from fossil fuel dependency to 100% community-owned, renewable energy for all.
Building a new economy that is distributive and healthy by design, where transport, communications, housing, water and sanitation, education, health, care work, energy and social security are recognised as rights and are available for all through public services funded through just taxation. A transformed system will be based on sustainable local and regional economies linked together through equitable trade relations.

We call for the following principles to be the basis for all national/regional decisions around bailouts, tax concessions, regulatory frameworks and public spending, and all the necessary international/multilateral measures intended to see us through a recovery from COVID-19 and the ensuing socio-economic crisis into sustainable and just societies founded on peoples’ sovereignty and participation.

Read the full Principles for a Just Recovery report here

Clean Futures, Climate, FoE

Beyond Coal

roman December 2, 2019

from FoE Australia, Nov 21, 2019

Coal power generation is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Australia, being responsible for over one quarter of total emissions. Given that burning coal is our leading contributor to climate change, moving our electricity supply away from coal is one of the quickest, most efficient ways of doing our part to act.

There is a pathway to avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, and avoiding a catastrophic rise in global temperatures. Retiring every coal-burning power station over the next decade — and replacing them with clean energy generation and storage — is the simplest and most effective way for Australia to do our fair share of reducing greenhouse emissions to a safe level. It’s our best shot to tackle climate change, protect people, and protect our planet’s natural places.

That is why we have joined together with six other community-based groups to launch the Beyond Coal campaign.

Change is already happening in the coal sector. But this transition needs to be managed. We need a plan to drive the changes that climate science tells us are needed, while looking after the workers and communities who currently rely on coal.

As Australia’s energy system diversifies, so too will the jobs available in the sector. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, investing in relatively new technologies — like battery storage, battery storage, hydrogen, lithium and rare earths — could be one of our best opportunities to create regional jobs and grow industry hubs. In Victoria, the proposed Star of the South offshore wind farm is expected to provide 12,000 jobs in construction, and 300 ongoing jobs – and could provide up to one-fifth of the state’s electricity needs

(more…)

Adelaide FoE Notes, Clean Futures, Climate

Solidarity Sit-down Fri 29 Feb, Parliament House

roman November 25, 2019

from School Strike 4 Climate:

Our Government’s inaction on the climate crisis is contributing to catastrophic fire conditions. People are hurting. Communities are being devastated. And summer hasn’t even begun.

But rather than take real action on the climate crisis, all our Government offers is their thoughts, prayers and more support for coal, oil and gas projects.

Our Government has repeatedly ignored Indigenous leaders and firefighters’ warnings of a spiralling bushfire crisis. And they have failed to provide the support needed to manage country and bushfires in a time of climate crisis. They need to be held to account.

On November 29, join all of us at Solidarity Sit-Downs to demand increased support for Indigenous land management and the Rural Fire Service and real climate action:

1. No new coal, oil and gas projects
2. 100% renewable energy and exports by 2030
3. Funding for a just transition and jobs for fossil fuel workers and communities.

Together, we’ll sit shoulder to shoulder outside the offices of our MPs and fossil fuel companies across Australia and hear from those on the frontline of the climate crisis. We’ll also donate to support those impacted by and fighting the fires: https://tinyurl.com/yekkfblg

Bring a cushion, and together let’s show solidarity with everyone on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

Adelaide: 12 noon Friday 29th, SA Parliament

Clean Futures, Climate, Old_Notes

SA’s stunning renewable energy transition

roman November 11, 2019

South Australia now ranks number two in the world – behind Denmark – in total share of electricity generated from”variable” sources – i.e. wind and solar.

What makes South Australia’s achievement all the more remarkable is that South Australia is located at the end of a “skinny” grid, has a “peaky” load that averages around 1,500MW, but can go to more than 3,000MW in the summer heat, and to as low as 500MW in mild and sunny spring days, and it has little connection to other markets, unlike Denmark and most other regions.

See “South Australia’s stunning renewable energy transition, and what comes next” at reneweconomy.com.au for the full story.

Clean Futures, Old_Notes