Call for an urgent energy transition, fair and solidary
The right to energy is a fundamental right for all human beings and all populations of the earth.
COP21, by the solemn act of 196 countries, gave birth to a great hope in the face of the gravity and urgency of the world climate situation. To fulfill this hope acts must be worthy of the challenges. In particular, we must put an end to the use of fossil energies as soon as we can. For this purpose, we must use financial mechanisms appropriate to the needs and situations of different countries.
The energy transition cannot be carried out with the necessary speed, responding to social and environmental needs, as long as this transition is a prisoner of a market in the hands of financial capitalism.
The WFSW puts forward the demand that we move from competition to solidarity and cooperation in the energy field.
The energy transition cannot be carried out for the benefit of all human beings without a coordinated international program, accompanied by a mechanism making it possible to take into account the needs of populations.
The WFSW calls upon its affiliated organizations to mobilize:
A. About research :
1. To build major research programs on new sources of energy, on the means and methods of energy-saving, and more broadly on the energy transition.
2. To condemn present research policies directed mainly to satisfy the requirements of multinational companies and support the competitiveness of territories subjected to extreme economic competition caused by free trade agreements.
B. To carry out the energy transition :
1. To implement the complementarity between different sorts of energies, in an organized way, on the basis of the needs and resources of different countries.
2. To establish scientific, technological, and financial cooperation between the nations of the North and the South.
3. To set up an international agency for energy transition, the purpose of which is to collect funds and to organize the energy transition at the international level, including major research programs.
In particular, to finance the energy transition, the WFSW asks these organizations to mobilize in order to :
– Engage a rapid process of ending subsidies to fossil energies, with the necessary international aid and the transfer to the development of renewable energies.
– Set up taxation on financial transactions and a 1% tax on the fortunes of billionaires, as recommended by the UN (UNCTAD report)
– Transfer a large part of military budgets to the energy transition.
– Keep the promise of a contribution by rich countries to the Green Climate Fund, totaling at least $100 billion per year, the figure indicated in the Cancún Declaration (2010).
The WFSW will present all of these propositions to the UN organizations, and will promote them to international NGOs and international and regional trade union federations and confederations.
