We’ve written a manifesto titled Energy beyond Neoliberalism: “This is a call for energy democracy. Not energy security or energy separation. A survivable and just energy future means breaking the grip of elite interests on our energy systems, ending dependency, increasing autonomy, building diverse power structures through which we can hold one another to account,…
Back in Spring, the Kilburn Manifesto team asked whether we’d like to submit a chapter on energy to their project. Edited by Soundings founding editors Stuart Hall, Doreen Massey, and Mike Rustin, After Neoliberalism seeks to open up space to debate alternatives to current dominant neoliberal systems. Most of our campaigning on oil focuses on…
Around about 3.00 am on the morning of Friday 19th September, whilst anxiously watching the results come in on the Scottish Independence Referendum, we heard one of the commentators on STV ‘Scotland Decides’ explain his view that after months of the politicians being unable to help the voters make their decision, ‘business leaders’ had stepped…
What’s missing from the oil debate around Scotland’s referendum? The dominant voices on both sides of the #indyref debate have focused on total reserves left on the UK Continental Shelf, and on the potential for an oil fund. But the debate has shied away from asking in whose interest oil should be governed, and whether…
(Guest blog by Ragnhild Freng Dale. For more information on collusion between oil companies & universities in Britain, see Platform’s report Knowledge & Power) A damning statement from the Norwegian committee responsible for university research ethics challenges collaboration between universities and oil companies. After months of deliberation over the ethics of petroleum research, the Norwegian…
In the context of the furore that’s raging about artists provoking the Sydney Biennale to reject funding from Transfield Holdings – who run offshore detention centres for asylum seekers – now is the moment to really grasp just how incendiary the sources of our funding can be. Or to put it positively, just how important…
خسرت مصر نحو 10 مليار دولار من إيرادات الغاز من 2005 إلى2010، وفقا لتقرير صدر اليوم عن المبادرة المصرية للحقوق الشخصية و بلاطفورم بعنوان “فساد تعاقدات الغاز في عصر مبارك“، فقد سمحت العقود المبرمة في عصر مبارك بتصدير مليارات الأمتار المكعبة من الغاز إلى الأردن وأسبانيا وإسرائيل بأسعار بخسة. واستخدم تقرير المبادرة المصرية الصادر مؤخرا…
Egypt lost $10 billion in gas revenues from 2005-2011, according to a report launched yesterday by EIPR and Platform. Contracts signed during the Mubarak years allowed the export of billions of cubic metres of underpriced gas to Jordan, Spain and Israeli-occupied Palestine. Some of the individuals behind these deals were convicted of corruption. EIPR and…
The flood-waters are slowly receding. Communities across the country are still struggling to regain a sense of normality after the wettest winter on record. Questions are being raised about extreme weather in the UK, how prepared we are to deal with it, and whether or not this is a taster of things to come. You’re…
On Wednesday, the European Union’s house bank froze its lending in Ukraine with the escalating violence, as the death toll passed 26. There have been reports of ‘death squads’ kidnapping opposition activists from hospitals, and today deaths have spiralled – some protestors claimed that 100 died. Western governments threatened sanctions and the President of the…