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The Social and Environmental Requirements of a Climate Emergency Economy

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The Social and Environmental Requirements of a Climate Emergency Economy argues that we need to dramatically reduce demand for resources, particularly in the transport, steel and construction sectors, and invest in jobs and livelihoods rather than infrastructure and material goods.
It also asserts that the transition to low-carbon must be built on consent and be equitable.
The report contains Recommendations, using the policy toolkit introduced in the Green House and GEF report, Trade and Investment Requirements for Zero Carbon.

 

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Available in Czech.


This work forms part of a wider project exploring what a ‘climate emergency economy’ would look like through a rethinking of trade, industry and infrastructure investment. The project involves Greenhouse Think Tank in the UK alongside Wetenshappelijk Bureau Groenlinks in the Netherlands and Green Foundation Ireland, and the Bulgarian Foundation of Environment and Agriculture.

Freedom and Security in a Complex World (2021 edition)

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Context

People all over the world are taking their future back into their hands. Together, they are taking initiatives in the fields of renewable energy, local food production, sharing tools, and so forth. This is the most hopeful movement of our time. Where the market and state fail, people are taking action. As free citizens, they are reinventing the collective, with open partnerships where personal development and social engagement go hand in hand. This observation seems to contradict what we experience every day. The system errors of our society model fill the newspapers: climate crisis, unstable banks, refugee flows. Accepted wisdom is that uncertainty is increasing. But both trends are happening, not by coincidence, at the same time.

 

Objectives

While examining the two interlinked concepts of Freedom and Security, this publication suggests that the answer needs to be the transformation into a socioecological society in the 21st century. It argues for the realisation of a societal project that strives for equal freedom for all people to flourish in security, within the boundaries of the planet, and proposes concrete steps towards it.

 

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Available in English here.

Available in French here.

Available in German here.

Available in Hungarian here.

Available in Spanish here.

Available in Macedonian here.

Available in Greek here.


This report presents a new and updated take on the 2017 version (Please see the English, French, German, Hungarian and Spanish editions from that year, which were part of the transnational project “A green transformation: Freedom and Security in uncertain times” ).

The 2021 report was developed in partnership with Oikos and with financial support from the European Parliament to the European Green Foundation. 

Mining operations taxed lightly in Finland

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This publication is part of the Green European Foundation’s ‘Metals for a green and digital Europe’ transnational project, where we are spotlighting the needs of the EU to examine and adjust its supply and use of metals. The initiative for reforming the Finnish Mining Act started with the Finnish Parliament’s ratification of the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) in 2018. The proposal on the reform, originally intended to be submitted to Parliament in December 2020, has now been postponed by a year as the Ministry chose to include an instrument for the comparison of interests in the reform just as the working group was about to finish its work. Juho Heikkilä, student of Economics and Environmental Economics, explains the background of the reform, examines the content of the draft and offers suggestions for its improvement.

The Transformative Doughnut Economics Model

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The doughnut economics model is increasingly presented as an alternative human development measure, meeting needs and crossing the boundaries of environmental degradation. In the last ten years, the model has been further developed, and more and more, cities are giving up measuring their development through GDP and deciding to switch to the doughnut model, which should ensure that human needs are met in accordance with natural boundaries.

Read more about it and how cities can be a fertile testing ground for the model in EnglishSerbian and Greek.

Ten Thoughts on Growth

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With the ongoing Covid-crisis, it has become clear that “business as usual” is no longer an option, as the effects will be felt for years to come. Yet still, governments remain obsessed with growth based on GDP.

In this report, Mikael Malmaeus (board member in Cogito and researcher at The Swedish Environmental Research Institute) uncovers and clarifies the concepts of growth, their meaning and impact with the purpose to enable a meaningful, forward looking and insightful discussion on preferred futures and where to start to get there. With this collaboration, GEF and Cogito hope to contribute to a clear and comprehensive discussion on growth today and tomorrow, and to inspire actionable insight.

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Available in Polish

Available in Czech

Available in Albanian

Available in Turkish

Organise! Object! Outsmart the Paradigm!

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Read this publication and use it to learn about smart cities with an added Eastern European perspective, have some fun along the way and feel empowered enough to promote the critical solutions for smart city implementation in your city!

The Charter for the Smart City was produced as part of the project of the same name, and puts the values of democracy, connectedness, human dignity, privacy,  sustainability, and equality at the heart of smart cities. Local politicians and active citizens who share these values may use the principles in the Charter as starting points for democratic debate and informed moral judgment on technological innovations in their communities.

 

Also available in Albanian, Croatian, Russian and Turkish.


This publication was produced within the project “Charter for the Smart City II” organised by the Green European Foundation (GEF) with the support of Cooperation and Development Network Eastern Europe (CDN) and Wetenschapellijk Bureau Groen Links. It has been realised with the financial support of the European Parliament.

A Just Transition in Agriculture

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This paper is part of the Green European Foundation’s Just Transition transnational project. The project looks into the question of transforming from an extractive to a regenerative economy in a just and equitable way in order to find the necessary support among the population. The project is focused on collecting and sharing insights on the development of future-proof politics and policies, developed in a sensitive way that keeps in mind local specificities. The project is, on behalf of GEF, coordinated by OIKOS (Belgium), who authored a framing paper, Climate, Jobs and Justice for a green and socially just transition, published in December 2020. The project partners are Green House Think Tank (UK), Institute for Political Ecology (Croatia); Sunrise (North-Macedonia), Transicion Verde (Spain), Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG) and Networked (Serbia). In 2020 these partners carried out various activities in their countries to increase awareness of the importance of a Just Transition. In 2021 they will collaborate on the production of a book showcasing the main challenges and opportunities around Just Transition, to be published in autumn 2021. This publication will feed into the broader scope of the project.

 

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Also available in Spanish.

Governance Strategies for Cooling Cities: Cases of Athens and Istanbul

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This article was produced as part of the Cities as Places of Hope Project to present research findings on good practices in cities. The project aims to increase the visibility of actors who work on urbanisation policies and to enhance cooperation among different actors by highlighting inspiring examples from different cities shown by project partners. The Cities as Places of Hope Project is carried out by the Green European Foundation with the support of green organizations in the following countries: Spain (Transición Verde), Catalonia (Nous Horitzons), Croatia (The Institute for Political Ecology-IPE), Belgium (Oikos), North Macedonia (Sunrise), and Turkey (Green Thought Association). The Cities as Places of Hope Project started in 2019 with a focus on progressive city networks that appear as key factors in the creation of a positive narrative about the future of Europe. Project activities that were carried out in 2020 aimed to bring together progressive and transformative trans-local city networks, to connect them and to facilitate exchange between them, ultimately contributing to the development of a positive narrative about the future of Europe.

 

This publication has been realised with the financial support of the European Parliament to the Green European Foundation. The European Parliament is not responsible for the content of this publication.

Also available in Turkish – ŞEHİRLERİ SERİNLETMEK İÇİN YÖNETİŞİM STRATEJİLERİ: ATİNA VE İSTANBUL ÖRNEKLERİ

Making the City Green with Civil Society

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Making the City Green with Civil Society: Roundtable Meeting Report of IMM-Civil Society Relations within the Framework of Green City Practices

 

This report is prepared on the basis of the outputs of the Green Cities Workshops organized under the Cities as Places of Hope Project. The Cities as Places of Hope Project has been carried out by the Green European Foundation with the support of green organizations from all over Europe; Spain (Transición Verde), Catalonia (Nous Horitzons), Croatia (The Institute for Political Ecology-IPE), Belgium (Oikos), Northern Macedonia (Sunrise) and Turkey (Green Thought Association). This project was launched in 2019 focusing on progressive city networks, a key factor in developing a positive narrative about Europe’s future. Within the scope of the project, it is aimed to bring together the progressive and transformative local and international city networks, to provide cooperation, to facilitate the exchange of information, and to contribute to the creation of a positive narrative about the future of Europe with the activities carried out in 2020.

 

Also available in Turkish

Blockers and Enablers for Decarbonising the Dutch Chemistry, Refinery and Basic Metals Industries

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This report is part of the Green European Foundation’s Transnational Climate Emergency Economy project. The project explores the challenge of decarbonising ‘harder to abate’ sectors, such as the chemistry, basic metals and refinery industries and international trade. Wetenschappelijk Bureau GroenLinks, Green House Think Tank and Green Foundation Ireland each focus on a specific part of a climate emergency economy. This particular report was written by WBGL and focuses on Dutch energy-intensive industries.

The Economic Model in Tourism Monoculture

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EL MODEL ECONÒMIC DEL MONOCULTIU TURÍSTIC

 

As this project developed in 2020, COVID-19 wrestled hold of Europe and devastated tourism industries across the continent. With the streets and beaches empty, people and governments have been forced to look at the economic sustainability and the environmental impact of the sector; our project has been holding up a magnifying glass, allowing them to look more closely.

In this publication (EN/CAT) we analyse the sun and beach tourism model, and draw conclusions that may help  us find alternatives.

 

This publication is a summary of the workshop “The economic model of monoculture tourism: 4 perspectives of the problem after COVID” that took place on 3 December 2020 in the frame of the GEF (Green European Foundation) project “Fair and Carbon Free Tourism”. Different green foundations collaborate in this transnational project that will work for three years on different aspects of sustainable tourism.

More information: Fair and Carbon Free Tourism

Just Transition Framing Paper

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This paper is part of the Green European Foundation’s Just Transition transnational project. The project looks into the question of transforming from an extractive to a regenerative economy in a just and equitable way to find the necessary support among the population. The project is focused on collecting and sharing insights on the development of future-proof politics and policies, developed in a sensitive way that keeps in mind local specificities. The project is on behalves of GEF coordinated by OIKOS (Belgium), with as project partners Green House Think Tank (UK), Institute for Political Ecology (Croatia); Sunrise (North-Macedonia), Transicion Verde (Spain), Networked and Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG) and Networked (Serbia). In the course of the project, the partners will implement activities in their countries to increase awareness of the importance of a Just Transition all over Europe. Eventually, the partners will compile a book on the subject to be published September 2021.

 

You can also read this publication in:

 

 

Infrastructure Requirements for Zero Carbon

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About the report

This report explores how incompatible our society’s current and planned infrastructure is with the rapid decarbonisation of the UK economy needed to deliver on the climate emergency. It focuses on three key sectors: freight transport, aviation and steel, and considers what changes are required to bring these into line with zero carbon goals, using the ‘blockers and enablers’ toolkit introduced in Green House’s August 2020 report, Trade and Investment Requirements for Zero Carbon.​
Jonathan Essex, one of the report’s authors, said:

Much of our existing industrial infrastructure, such as fossil fuel power stations and steel blast furnaces, is incompatible with zero carbon. Similarly, planned new transport infrastructure is still taking our economy in the wrong direction. The climate emergency means we must make different infrastructure choices. We need to manage down demand for energy and materials, and install renewable energy infrastructure faster. And we must reverse out investment in expanding road networks, ports and airports and make better use of what we already have. A climate-proof infrastructure investment strategy will be one that drives a change to smaller, circular economies that fit within environmental limits […].

 

This report is part of a wider project led by the Green European Foundation exploring what a ‘climate emergency economy’ would look like through a rethinking of trade, industry and infrastructure investment. The project involves Greenhouse Think Tank in the UK alongside Groenlinks in the Netherlands and Green Foundation Ireland.

 

Trade and Investment Requirements for Zero Carbon

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As moves are being made to introduce a Climate & Ecological Emergency Bill in the UK, and a new Trade Bill is progressing through parliament post-Brexit, it’s an important time to be considering the implications of zero carbon for global trade and investment decisions. This report proposes a much-needed toolkit to help policy makers face up to climate reality and address the wider environmental impacts and the imbalances of power and wealth that underlie our global trade.

Download the technical annex here.

social security

Basic Social Security 2030

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This GEF report uses the case of Finland to investigate challenges in current social security models, and provides a reform roadmap to a new basic social security system, with basic income as a central element.

This report is an edited version of the Finnish Green Think Tank Visio’s report ‘Perusturva 2030,’ published for international readers. The report looks at the challenges faced by the Finnish system as well as the principles for solving these challenges, and offers proposals for action for the parliamentary term 2019-2023 and further into the 2020s. While the focus is on Finland, the principles for a better social security system are applicable to any so-called developed country, and the concrete stepping stones and microsimulations work as examples on how to find solutions regardless of the current system in a given country.

This translation was realised by the Green European Foundation as part of its transnational project on Basic Income, a topic that will be further explored in the 2020 project Change of Mindset – Civil Society dialogue around UBI, Social Justice and Climate Impact.

System of (Im)Mobility – Movements of Asylum Seekers and Holders of International Protection Within the Schengen Area

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The contributions contained in this booklet are dedicated to analysing current European legislation, as well as the possibilities of reforming it, with reference both to the entry of non-EU citizens into the Schengen Area, and to their opportunities to move around by themselves or to be joined by family members.

They have been presented by the authors at a conference in Milan on 2nd December 2019, organised by GEF and with support of its partner organisations.

This publication has been realised by the Green European Foundation with the support of those partners Alexander Langer Foundation, Associazione per gli Studi Giuridici sull’Immigrazione and Open Society Foundations.

Please find the Italian version of this publication available to read here. 

A Charter for the Smart City

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People make technology, but technology in turn influences our lives, our societies and even our ethics. The development of new technologies therefore cannot be left to engineers and managers; it requires public debate and democratic control.

This Charter for the Smart City was produced as part of the project of the same name, and puts the values of democracy, connectedness, human dignity, privacy,  sustainability, and equality at the heart of smart cities. Local politicians and active citizens who share these values may use the principles in this Charter as starting points for democratic debate and informed moral judgment on technological innovations in their communities.

The Charter was developed through a series of roundtable discussions that took place in cities across Europe, as well as from online consultation, involving over 100 experts, (local) politicians and activists who shared their ideas.

 

Please find the Dutch version of this publication available to read here

Please find the French version of this publication available to read here

Please find the German version of this publication available to read here

Please find the Czech version of this publication available to read here

Hold Your Local Hackathon on Social Rights

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This guide has been created for those who wish to organise a hackathon on social rights, based both upon best practices from the world of tech and the experiences of the authors in running the more rights-based hackathon that took place in Serbia, Summer 2019.

Hackathon on Social Rights is published by the Federation of Young European Greens and is a result
of the Reclaim Your Social Rights! project.

The project is supported by the European Youth Foundation of Council of Europe . The Summer Hackathon is organised by the Green European Foundation with the support of the Federation of Young European Greens and with the financial support of the European Parliament to the Green European Foundation. The Council of Europe or the European Parliament are not responsible for the content of this project.

 

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Available in Greek

Climate Refugees and Climate Migration

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The effects of climate change and consequential natural disasters is causing the mass displacement of peoples across the world, a phenomenon that will only be exacerbated as the climate crisis continues.

A response to this global challenge and a clear legal framework to recognise and protect climate refugees on an international, regional and national level are urgently required.

This working paper aims to serve as a basis for debate and exchange on the matter, exploring controversies around and difficulties in pinpointing this phenomenon to better understand how to respond it.

Mapping the state of discourse on climate migration on the international and European levels, the Green European Foundation hopes to foster a more constructive debate and increase awareness.

This paper has been published as part of the GEF project Environmental Migration and Climate Refugees.

Fair and Healthy Food

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This discussion paper, written by Kati Van de Velde & Dirk Holemans from GEF partner Oikos, has been published as part of the GEF transnational project Fair and Healthy Food.

The paper explores the failings of the current agricultural and food system, and the possibilities for a transition to a sustainable and fair system, one which revaluates food as a human right, a public good and a commons.

Download the publication in Turkish and Serbian.