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The latest report from The Next System Project, released in advance of the Global Climate Change Summit in San Francisco, lays out a bold agenda for what "real climate change leadership" looks like. "Taking Climate Action to the Next Level" details three groundbreaking and complementary interventions that could start transforming the power structures that promote and enable our problematic energy and political economic systems: quantitative easing for the planet, public ownership for energy democracy, and anchor strategies for the energy transition.
The report was written by Next System Project co-chair Gus Speth and researchers Carla Skandier and Johanna Bozuwa. "Within the system we have, we will never be able to push the needle far or fast enough toward a renewable energy system," says the report's introduction. "We need to start implementing energy interventions today in key points of the system with the aims of keeping fossil fuels in the ground, deploying renewable energy, and changing our political economy.
The report has four chapters.
- The Systemic Roadblocks to Climate Action explains how three interconnected imperatives of the current system—the unrelenting pressure for economic growth, the outsized power of corporations, and the United States’ extractive approach to resource use—push us toward climate catastrophe and prevent meaningful action.
- Quantitative Easing for the Planet charts ways to halt fossil fuel extraction and dissolve entrenched opposition from major fossil fuel companies by proposing a buyout that can at once secure public control over fossil fuel reserves, keep them in the ground, and unlock an orderly, just energy transition.
- Public Ownership for Energy Democracy investigates opportunities for putting electricity generation and distribution back into public and community hands while enhancing democratic governance, wealth distribution, and renewable energy use throughout states and municipalities.
- An Anchor Strategy for the Energy Transition spells out how large, mission-driven energy consumers can create an alternative to today's extractivist economy by leveraging their resources to help build community systems and local demand for renewable energy sources, jobs, and investments.
Our page features a downloadable copy of the full report, an infographic that summarizes the "three interventions to take back the energy system," and links to web versions of the introduction and four chapters.
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