Green Transition

The Green Investment Bank was the first of its kind in the UK – what is it & what is the significance of its sell off?

Thirty years on from its transition to democracy after Franco, Spain faces a new transition to another system of government, which has yet to be defined.

Their worlds are still far apart: national security and foreign policy experts have traditionally thought of energy mainly in terms of the need to secure access to energy resources from abroad while avoiding strategic dependence on the suppliers.

Everyone agrees that we are in the midst of a massive financial and economic crisis – but how can it be resolved? A new publication from Green House think tank, ‘The Post Growth Project’, sets out to critically examine why growth is regarded as so central to our economic system, and to challenge the assumption that it is ‘bad news’ when the economy doesn’t grow.

Lima is currently hosting the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21), which runs from 30 November till 11 December 2015. There, at last, definite agreements should be made to fend off climate change. After the tragic failure of the Copenhagen climate summit (2009), observers see the Paris summit as the last chance.

The European Trade Union Institute recent conference on ‘The Socio-Ecological Transition: A New Climate for the EU’s Sustainability Transition’ laid bare the need for radical change to deal with the climate crisis. And if battling climate change requires making our societies less superficial, less focused on expansion and instead more focused on equality, then that’s something we can all fight for.

While an excellent book, we need to look further than simply saying ‘social movements are the only answer’ if we are to develop effective movements that create change. The need for social movement mobilisation too easily becomes a slogan rather than a nuanced solution. We can both praise and look deeper than Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’.

The ecological challenge should no longer be addressed solely as an environmental issue. Rather, it should be considered a social one. A riveting French report makes the relationship between the environment and 21st century lifestyles amazingly concrete.

The IPCC’s latest report is categorical: unless we act now, dramatic changes in global temperatures will occur by the end of the century. The message is loud and clear: it is a call to action of the utmost urgency.

Green parties face major challenges ahead. How can we finance welfare in the future? How do we strengthen the third sector and the public sector in many countries? How do we find ways to regulate the private welfare market? How much of the wealth can be managed by non-profit organisations or volunteer work (the church or the family?) These are among the questions that are discussed in a new report by GEF and its partners.