Open Letter about the Sustainable Energy for All initiative (SEFA) |
Biofuelwatch | Tuesday, 19 June 2012 | |
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OPEN LETTER: Sustainable Energy for All Initiative- Using poverty and climate change as excuses to increase corporate profits from energy provision We call on Governments to reject the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative (SEFA). The SEFA process and Action Agenda are deeply flawed and threaten to further entrench destructive, polluting and unjust energy policies for corporate profit under the guise of alleviating energy poverty, while undermining community rights to energy sovereignty and self determination. Like the UN Global Compact, SEFA is another attempt to supersede multilateral UN decision-making processes with 'multi-stakeholder partnerships' whose primary mission is to generate profits for private companies irrespective of impacts on people and the environment. Any initiative that seeks to genuinely address the climate crisis and provide access to 'energy for all' must be based on the principle of energy sovereignty rather than on corporate profits. Reasons why SEFA is inherently flawed include: 1) SEFA is undemocratic, unaccountable and corporate-controlled:
2) SEFA's aim is even greater corporate control over energy policies and decision:
3) SEFA's goals are deeply inadequate:
4) SEFA promotes dangerous, unsustainable and unproven types of energy generation:
Sustainable energy must mean a rapid phasing out of fossil fuels. However, this does not mean replacing them with other harmful types of energy generation. Agrofuels, large-scale hydro power, nuclear energy, “more efficient” fossil fuel combustion and more natural gas exploitation will not serve the interests of people or the planet. Energy “access for all” must address both energy poverty and energy overconsumption. It must also address humanity's footprint on planetary systems, given that we are dangerously close to and in some cases clearly beyond various tipping points. Those who are energy poor, including in particular women, need access to energy that really is sustainable and renewable, while those who are over-consuming must reduce energy consumption. This means that the high-energy development model of rich countries must be changed and must not be replicated in the global South by corporations – as SEFA seeks to do. There are many examples of community-driven, genuinely sustainable initiatives that contribute to energy sovereignty for women and men that can be replicated. Far from moving in the right direction, the SEFA initiative is poised to further entrench corporate control of energy policies and investments in polluting, destructive and socially exclusive forms of energy generation.
Current signatories:
+ All Nepal Women Association, Nepal + Andean Tapir Fund, US + Arise for Social Justice, US + Biofuelwatch, UK/US + Buckeye Forest Council, US + Carbon Trade Watch + Centre for Civil Society Environmental Justice Project, Durban, South Africa + COECOCEIBA - Friends of the Earth Costa Rica + Comité de Derechos Humanos de Base de Chiapas Digna Ochoa, Chiapas, México + Corner House, UK + Dogwood Alliance, US + Durham Environment Watch, Canada + Earth Peoples-International + Econexus, UK + Foro Ecologista de Paraná, Argentina + Fundación M´Biguá, Ciudadanía y Justicia Ambiental, Argentina + Global Forest Coalition + International Oil Working Group, Canada + International Rivers Network + Jubilee South - Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD) + Laklumal Ixim-Norte Selva (Nuestro Pueblo de Maíz) Chiapas, México + La Liga de Defensa del Medio Ambiente (LIDEMA), Bolivia + Market Air Quality Campaign, US + Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste, Chiapas/Mexico + Nadi Ghati Morcha, Chhattisgarh, India + Network of the Indigenous Peoples-Solomons (NIP), Solomon Islands + New York Climate Action Group, US + Organización Campesina Emiliano Zapata-Región Venustiano Carranza, Chiapas, México + Rettet den Regenwald e.V., Germany + Salva la Selva, Spain + Sobrevivencia (Friends of the Earth Paraguay), Paraguay + Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield, US + terre des hommes - Arbeitsgruppe Schwaebisch Gmuend, Germany + Texas Campaign for the Environment, US + World Rainforest Movement + Viola, Russia [1] www.un.org/wcm/content/site/sustainableenergyforall/home/members [2] http://www.sustainableenergyforall.org/images/content/ActionAgenda.pdf [3] Ghana was the first country to enter into a formal SEFA commitment. Investments in natural gas distribution and processing for LPG use expansion is a central feature of their country commitment: www.sustainableenergyforall.org/commitments/single/national-action-plan-for-sustainable-energy-for-all and [4] An example is the African Development Bank's Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa which includes investments in oil and gas pipelines and which is listed as an example of an initiative that could fall under the SEFA Action Area “Grid Infrastructure and Supply Efficiency” [5] www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Ghana_coordinates_nuclear_planning_activities-1705124.html [6] www.ief.org/news/news-details.aspx?nid=710 [7] At a SEFA meeting in Brussels, the Swiss Addax ethanol investment in Sierra Leone (http://www.ief.org/news/news-details.aspx?nid=710 ) was cited as a 'positive example'. Furthermore, the Action Agenda suggests that EU biofuel policies, which are a major driver of land-grabs, as a positive example for 'transportation' policies. [8] Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves [9] http://ideas.repec.org/p/ess/wpaper/id4962.html and http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es203388g .
further information: Nothing Neutral Here: Large-scale biomass subsidies in the UK and the role of the EU ETS
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