Energy

A big risk for Europe stems from its dependency on Russian natural gas and oil.

The bitter disappointment at the failure of previous climate summits dealt a serious blow to climate activism.

An interview with Claude Turmes, Green MEP from Luxembourg (Die Greng).

As Green Deputy Mayor of the 20th district of Paris from 2001 to 2014, Fabienne Giboudeaux, initiated an architectural complex of 47 social housing units, a gymnasium and a 600 m2 roof garden in one of the most densely populated district of Paris.

Nearly 30,000 people took to the streets of Berlin on January 18, 2014 to protest the industrialisation of farming and the E.U.-U.S Free Trade Agreement currently under negotiation. In addition to making their demands heard, the organisers gave a voice and a face to Agrarwende, a citizen movement that is gaining steam in Germany and that calls for a rethinking of agriculture.

Citizens are demanding more direct democracy, something that the political parties are resisting. However the economic crisis has changed everything and made the status quo no longer sustainable. In its wake, a number of new movements are challenging how political decisions are being made.

If we want to put finance on a leash with smart regulation, Greens must take the wind out of their opponent’s sails by having policies that simultaneously unleash finance and restore lending into the real economy and, above all, into a green industrial transformation.

The ongoing Climate Summit in Warsaw has been relegated to the sidelines by the Polish media – the social and political debate in Poland definitely doesn’t tend to question a coal, shale gas and nuclear future for the country.

Angela Merkel fell just a few MP’s short of getting an absolute majority in the German Bundestag. The ironic title of “the Queen of Europe” doesn’t sound too ironic after these elections.

Greens need to forge a broad alliance against neoliberalism with some unexpected allies, such as the coal miners. Ahead of COP 19 which takes place this year in Warsaw, Poland how can the green movement in Poland move forward?