Power to the people
Date: 16 January 2015
Energy privatisation has been a disaster. In the UK, it’s obvious to everyone. Household bills have increased eight times faster than wages in the last few years, while the Big Six energy companies are pocketing literally billions a year. Thousands of mainly older people die needlessly of cold each winter while the government is having to bribe energy companies with payments of almost £1bn to make sure the lights stay on.
Unfortunately, the main political parties have no idea what to do about the situation. This week Labour held a debate in Parliament on freezing energy bills and giving the energy regulator more powers – but this is a woefully inadequate response to the stranglehold profiteering corporations have over our energy system. We pay publicly-funded Winter Fuel Payments and Warm Home Discounts til the cows come home, but with big energy companies in the driving seat (and ultimately pocketing this cash), we’re wasting our time.
Around the world it’s the same story. Whether it’s multinational mining companies polluting water and evicting communities in Colombia or Shell pumping oil and profits out of Nigeria while half the population lacks access to electricity, it’s clear that corporate control of energy puts profits before people or the planet.
For those of us with a little more distance from the corporate spin machines, there’s in little doubt that the only way everyone can have access to the energy they need without trashing the planet in the process is by reclaiming control of our energy resources for ourselves. And fortunately there are increasing examples of ways in which this can be done – from rural electricity cooperatives in Costa Rica to cities like Hamburg voting to take the grid back into public hands. Our recent ‘Rays of Hope’ booklet gives just a few examples of what we’re calling ‘energy justice’.
With our new name of Global Justice Now there’s no longer a danger that we’ll be mistaken for the kind of organisation that communities in the global south oppose (‘development’ has become a term associated with projects like coal mines and energy-hungry luxury hotels while our old logo looked remarkably like that of the World Bank, an institution known for championing the interests of corporations over countries energy and other resources) and better placed to build a strong and diverse movement to demand control of our energy systems.
In the coming months we’ll be hosting an Energy Justice Assembly as part of our Take Back Our World conference, working with activists in Nigeria to challenge the privatisation of their electricity system and supporting our network of activism to take the message of energy justice onto the streets around the UK. Join the fight for energy justice today!
