Okay, I think we're going to get started. Welcome everybody. Good to see some familiar faces again and some new faces. Welcome to the first 2Ed Global Forum of 2022. Great to see so many people on today.
The agenda is in the chat. and we'll keep reposting it as people come on. Let's see, we have interpretation into French, Spanish, and English.
So please join a interpretation channel so that you can catch the content in your preferred language. My name is... Irene Hongping Sean, and I work with Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, also known as 2ED. This morning, we're going to start with a couple of announcements, and I'm going to hand that over to John Great, my colleague, to make those announcements.
Over to you, John. Okay, thanks, Irene. Good day, everyone. Greetings.
Good morning, afternoon, evening. We've got people on from, I think, quite a few parts of the world. I'm just going to quickly announce two things. First is that we recently had a new union sign on to be a participating union, as we say, in the 2ED network. That is the Autonomous Federation of Workers of Chile.
I'm not sure if I've... if we've got someone on the call today from there. I will post in the chat a couple of links just in case there's anyone on the call who's not familiar with what it means for unions to participate in GED. The information is available there. Ask a few things and then there's some information also on why we think it's important for unions to support GED, just for a quick reference.
So very pleased to have Cat Chile on board. really exciting development, especially as we're heading into more and more discussions about how to get more momentum around the important struggles that are happening in Latin America. So very pleased with that.
Also just wanted to mention that we've had a few new sign-ons, pardon me, to the Trade Union Program for Public Energy Futures, which is the program developed over the course of last year in close collaboration with PSI and CGT's Energy and Mining Union, FNME. I think that was mentioned in the materials that had been circulated, so that should be available. We've had, you know, very pleased to say we've had the TUCA, the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas, CSA TUCA, sign on.
Very important to get regional bodies. participating in this effort. Also the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, TSSA from the UK, and Centro Carbon in Colombia.
So three more sign-ons in recent weeks that we're very pleased to announce and have on board. I think that's it from me for now, so I will hand, I think I'm handing back to Irene. Yeah, thanks.
Great, thank you John. Sorry, I'm letting a few other people into. I'm not sure if I introduced myself, but I think my name was there. So John treat with working with you.
Sorry. Thanks, John. Appreciate that. Okay, so first I just want to remind all speakers today to speak slowly and clearly for the interpreters, and also that we have closed caption options if anybody wants to see subtitles.
So I'll start with just a little bit of information. Today's title of our global forum is Green Structural Adjustment in South Africa, a War on Workers and Climate. And we had a great response, as John mentioned, to the meeting itself. And we have unions from Zimbabwe and Liberia, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, India, and so many more countries registered.
So there is definitely great interest in this. in this topic and we welcome you to introduce yourself in the chat if you'd like since there's many of us we don't have time to do individual introductions this morning but we're very glad that everybody is here. So why did we choose to do this global forum now? As some of you have heard there was a deal that was struck at COP26 in Glasgow last November.
And this deal was where the United States, the UK, France, Germany, and the EU, that these governments agreed to provide $8.5 billion to South Africa in concessional loans, grants, and other forms of financial mechanisms to help reduce emissions and facilitate South Africa's energy transition. This deal has been seen as some as a promising model that can be replicated elsewhere. A quote from a recent Bloomberg article says, quote, the South Africa funding deal has been cited by experts as a breakthrough that could become a model for developed nations to help finance energy transitions in other developing countries, which have contributed relatively little to global warming so far.
This is especially important as we head into this year's COP27 in Egypt, because the spotlight will not only be on North Africa. but also the entire continent as the region has done very little to contribute to climate change but also needs financial support and resources for their energy transition. This model, however, reeks of past structural adjustment programs of the IMF and the World Bank forcing economic reforms that perpetuate colonial relations for developing countries.
Irene, I apologize. This is Emily. Not only are you going kind of fast reading, but also your papers are very close to the microphone, which makes it hard for everyone to hear you.
Thank you for that. Thank you. Yes. I apologize for interrupting. No, I appreciate that.
Thanks. I'm going to be aware of that and try to not do that anymore. Let me repeat that a little bit.
Just that the model reeks, the model that we're seeing presented in South Africa reeks of. past structural adjustment programs of the IMF and the World Bank, forcing economic reforms that perpetuate colonial relations, where developing countries end up in financial enslavement to developed countries. And in this deal with South Africa, the energy sector will be restructured so the private sector can lead, and ESCOM, the public utility, will be privatized.
energy markets liberalized to make room for private renewable energy, and resources extracted. And all this is to enrich foreign investors at the expense of South African sovereignty, South African workers, and climate goals under a banner of climate change, otherwise known as green structural adjustment. So this model is moving quickly to regions not just in South Africa.
And we wanted this global forum to happen so that we could create room for a narrative that is not about supporting the business as usual green structural adjustment plan, but instead highlight a need for an alternative pro-public energy transition, especially necessary if we want an energy transition that advances justice for workers, for communities, and also meets climate goals. We also wanted to create a space for unions and allies around the world to come together to continue building international solidarity in this fight against privatization and for a public energy pathway forward. So today we have the pleasure of being joined by four speakers from South Africa who are very familiar with the struggle against privatization in the energy sector.
And we'll introduce each one properly before they speak. But first, I'm going to give the floor over to Sean Sweeney, who is the coordinator of 2ED, who will give some additional background and framing for today's discussion. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Irene.
Thanks, comrades. Can you hear me okay? Great, great. Just, I think, Irene's covered the territory very well. I just want to add a couple of smaller additional points.
It was clear when we started CHUED 10 years ago, the reason why we needed this project is because the climate agenda, the energy transition agenda was being made inseparable from a privatization agenda. It was difficult for a lot of unions because unions wanted to, and I'm going back a decade or more, wanted to be on the right side of the climate fight. They want to be for climate protection. They understand that workers are on the front lines, especially in the Global South, of the effects of climate instability and all that goes with that.
But it was being packaged by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. and also United Nations Environment Programme, as a need to incentivise the private sector. And that means the states needed to get out of the way in terms of energy systems. So this has been, this is structural adjustment with a definitely with a green protective blanket.
It's trying to hide behind, it's the same agenda hiding behind climate protection goals. And we've had recent discussions last year with, we have Ozzy Warwick from Trinidad and Tobago from the oil field workers. Similar structural adjustment programs are being proposed in other parts of the world, particularly in the global south.
So what we're seeing then is this generalized policy that is not clearly understood. And Irene mentioned the Glasgow deal between the global. North, if you like, and South Africa, which basically dangles, calls explicitly for the unbundling of the national utility, in other words, the precursor to privatization, while also dangling 8.5 billion in concessional finance.
But if you look, read between the lines on all of these deals, it doesn't say where the money is going to come from. It's not all concessional. there, if we look at climate finance over the last decade, we see that most of the money that has gone from the north to the south in the name of helping the south is either concessional loans that still need to be repaid or market level loans. So it's not really, it doesn't add up to an assistance from the north to the south. And if anything, it incurs more debt on the south.
Now, the purpose for the forum is that this is particularly acute in South Africa at the moment, where the message, and having worked with AIDC, TNI, NUMSA, NUM, and SAFTA in recent years on this question, the agenda there is particularly aggressive, and it misrepresents what is happening in the rest of the world. At a time when many countries in the world are drawing conclusions that the neoliberal approach to addressing the climate emergency has been a total failure in South Africa, it's being pushed more aggressively than ever before. But this can be stopped, comrades.
And we've got comrades here from Mexico and Chile and other parts of the world are already putting a stop to the neoliberal energy reforms. And we have, of course, the courageous struggle with the French energy unions to protect public energy in France, which has been a... And it's not that fight is not over, but it's going.
The fight is is continuing. And part of the role of CHUED is to pull unions together around a pro-public pathway towards a low carbon energy future. And I'm really looking forward to today's discussion.
I'm very inspired by the response we've gotten. I'll stop there, Irene. Great. Thanks, Sean. Okay, I think we're going to move into our program.
Sean, do you want to start with the introductions? Sure, I'd be happy to do that. I think we've got Dominic Brian, the director of AIDC, is up first. CHUED and AIDC, that's the Alternative Information Development Center, which works closely with unions and other social movements, have worked on a document, which I'm sure Dominic will explain.
will describe called Eskom Transformed. which is a pretty developed alternative to the privatization agenda being put forward by the government and some of the large NGOs. So it's a great pleasure to be working with Dominic over the years and also other comrades at Aidc.
So looking forward to his contribution. Thanks, Sean. Should I go ahead? Yes, speak up, Comrade, if you can, a little bit.
Can you hear me better? Yeah. Cool. I was asked to be brief, less than 10 minutes, so I'll try and keep to that.
I want to start by saying that I think in South Africa and globally, we've seen the global economy in stagnation for some time following the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. And in our analysis, we see many countries and corporations look for new means of accumulation as a means of extricating themselves from their current slums. I think all of this takes place in a context of course, which Sean correctly points out.
There's lots of contestation around the future of energy and energy systems. not least following lots of recognition and acknowledgement about the growing climate emergency and the decreasing amount of time that we have to avert an ecological catastrophe. It's in this context that following the pandemic, we see a deepening of the economic and social woes.
faced by many countries. And of course, the lockdowns that precipitated in 2020 didn't do much to shift the global energy system onto a low carbon pathway. In fact, there are many reports that indicate that carbon emissions have bounced back to even higher levels than before.
And of course, it's in this context that we see in South Africa and globally, a push to reassert austerity and fiscal consolidation. And we see following the outbreak of the pandemic, many, many countries, developing South countries, implement harsh budget cuts to public services. In South Africa, the austerity agenda is all but one pillar of an intensification of a neoliberal agenda of which the liberalization of our energy and transport sectors forms a key aspect. To give you a sense of the linkages or the nexus between the South African government corporations and the IMF, a recent a staff country report by the IMF indicates the following and I'll quote, efforts to enhance competition in the power sector and streamline the regulatory burden will help unlock private investment in the renewable energy sector.
The power sector is highly concentrated and dominated by the state-owned electricity company ESCOM. Entry barriers are high, with stringent licensing requirements and restrictions. on third-party transactions. For the IMF, the greatest obstacle to the transformation of the energy sector is insufficient reform efforts rather than a lack of financing. And they go further to say access to green financing is available to South Africa as long as the country can demonstrate a commitment to private sector-led renewable energy production and a full operational overall of ESCOM.
This sentiment is shared. by the South African government, who in the recent State of the Nation address argued that a new consensus which recognizes that the state must create an environment in which the private sector can invest and unleash the dynamism of the economy is required. These sentiments are similarly reflected in the recent national budget speech and this is following I would say three years, or AIDC would say three or four years, of a process of unbundling the state-owned utility. on the pretense that because it's a monopoly, it stands in the way of advancing a transition to a low-carbon economy, and in so doing, opening up the space for greater private sector involvement in energy generation. And in last year, we had seen the announcement that there's an increase...
from one megawatt to 100 megawatts of embedded renewable energy generation without any license required as a means of catalyzing the role of the private sector in the energy generation in the country. Coupled with this, we hear that from the current South African finance minister that there's a big push or intention to effectively retrench a quarter of the current workers based at ESCOM, the energy utility, as part of this process of structural transformation. It's in light of all of these developments that ourselves as AIDC, along with TUED and others in the trade union movement, try to understand what the role of unbundling in the private sector would be in the South African energy system, which is quite carbon intensive. and if it will allow for taking the country forward to a low-carbon economy. For us, we argue that based on falling investments from the private sector into renewables as a result of the three-fall effect, that the private sector would actually be unable to deliver a transition to a low-carbon economy, not least in the shortest space amount of time required to deliver.
and nor will it be able to deliver on the socio-economic requirements like creating sufficient number of jobs in South Africa to deal with the mass unemployment crisis, and nor will it assist in redistributing wealth from the very rich to the poor in this country. And so for us, we developed the work around ESCOM Transformed, which based on the developments of the utility in this country and globally and initiatives around the liberalization of public utilities specifically in the energy sectors globally, the lessons that were learned. And for us, the conclusion is that if South Africa is serious about advancing a process towards decarbonizing the economy and the energy sector, it has to be driven by the public and on the public goods approach.
and that in fact ESCOM as a public utility and monopoly is best placed to advance such a transition with the scale and time pressures in mind. So I think this is just an overview of some of the key aspects of the research of which we feel that requires a lot more engagement with others particularly those within the environmental movement who have bought into notions that the unbundling of ESCOM is a means of advancing an energy transition in the country given the antipathy towards the state and the way the state has been corrupted by the private sector. The irony is and this is where I end, recently there's been a Zondo commission report which is has investigated the nexus of state and corporate corruption in the country, particularly under the years under the president of Jacob Zuma. These reports show how complicit the private sector has been in corruption within state-owned enterprises.
And as I say, the irony is now that whilst the private sector has been integral to the corruption and the hollowing out of state capacity, The current solution is for the private sector to take over these very services that they've been critically destroying. So it begs the question, how is it that the private sector, who was part of the problem, now becomes, how is it that they suddenly become the solution? And so we make the final argument that let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We know that there's...
lots of capacity that can be brought into the state-owned enterprise and large levels of investment that would be required to transform it. But that if we are realistic about what it's going to take to advance a just transition for South Africa, It will be critical that we fight the unbundling of the state-owned enterprise ESCOM and fight for fully public ESCOM that can deliver renewable energy generation. And that includes the ending of the private sector renewable energy industry under the Renewable Energy Industrial Power Producers Procurement Program. Thanks, Irene and Sean.
Thanks, Dominic. And I think, Sean, you're going to... Yeah, I'll jump in. We're privileged to have the Acting General Secretary of the National Union of Mine Workers from South Africa, William Mbappe, who I had the privilege of meeting at their National Executive Meeting in Cape Town in early December, I believe, or late November.
last year where we discussed very um very thoroughly the the proposals and of the from the came out of glasgow and the also the general energy transition policy and um there was a great spirit in the room of uh resistance to unbundling and i think the message that we tried to communicate is that despite the idea that the that there's going to be, it's inevitable, the transition. In fact, the Department of Mineral and Energy Resources in South Africa have been saying the energy transition is certain, irrespective of policy. And so these are myths that are being perpetuated. And National Union of Mine Workers, along with NUMSA and other comrades in South Africa, have been holding the line.
But this is a winning battle, comrades, because we can show the data in the CHUED documents the neoliberal approach to green structural adjustment is basically not going to succeed and is being resisted everywhere. So it's a great pleasure to introduce Comrade William, who's in Durban, I believe. Yeah, I know.
When I don't want people to find me, they will know me that I'm in Durban while I'm in Lombok. so that the enemy can go to Devon and then I'm in Limpopo. So I'm in Limpopo in my hometown.
I didn't go to Devon because I had problems yesterday. I came to Limpopo. I'm not going to take your time.
Let me take this opportunity to thank the organizers of this meeting for us to discuss. Firstly,. is raising an issue that last year they joined our strategic session and one of the biggest topics in that strategic session as the National Union of Mineworkers, we were discussing to develop a policy framework that as the union we will use that policy framework and I'm happy that IDC including CN are also assisting us to beef up the document that we initiated at the last year in December in Cape Town so that we present it next month because next month we are having a congress and that will then be a document that guides us in terms of how do we deal with energy in general. let's say not only renewable energies, IPPs and others, but just a framework that must be inclusive of all energy mixes if one has to then put it very nicely. But look, we are mindful that we are in a country that we all know that since 2021 our government started to embrace and committed themselves to other states out there.
Particularly we take it that, particularly at the COP26, we all know that they committed themselves. Obviously they got the money and we are mindful that this money did not come. You know, there's no one who can just give you money.
So if somebody gives you money, he may not tell you that I'm selling this, but obviously give you money because with that money, there will be certain conditions that this person believes that he's going to benefit. I will take it, for example, that you can't talk about these huge billions when people know very well that. there is no what they don't want anything about the south africa they just want to assist south africa my question is how do you how do you assist a country that is not uh uh committing emissions that are more than one percent why because you have got those that are emitting uh more than one percent why are you not then giving them more money because they are the ones that are in the west case scenario So our understanding is that this money is going to come with conditions. And as such, we strongly believe that the country must not accept monies that are going to have conditions at a later stage.
But we also are saying that we strongly believe that we must plan first. If they say, for example, if they say the purpose of this money... doesn't have condition but the only condition is to assist the South Africa to transition. Now our issue will then be let us take this money and plan and plan and say the current state of energy in South Africa is like this. Now we are going to use this money to transit from this current state of South Africa to this a new state.
But we need to compare because ours, the most issue, the most critical issue, is to avoid issues where this money is going to come, this money is going to come with the name of the state, but it will eventually be used to create private companies that people that are connected with the state are going to benefit. The money comes in the name of the state. The money is used to fund private companies that will then have to take over.
But at the end of the day, the companies that take over are not state companies, meaning that in the future they will then benefit. So it is something that we critically believe that. That is why if there is any funding, our view is that where it matters most, if any funding that must come. the best way is take the money to ESCOM so that at least when the money can then be in ESCOM, we know that if it is ESCOM that can say I want to introduce new technologies in terms of energy, then we know that by law they will then be forced to then take the workers from the old entities to the new entity. Now the workers are saved.
Now under those circumstances, then the workers are seen. But it is those things that we know. In South Africa, when that money comes, if it can arrive today, in South Africa this time is half past three. If it can arrive today at half past three, two hours at half past five, it will be in somebody's account and they will start to be sharing.
Because in me, I think we don't have a state. We just have a conveyor belt. The work of that conveyor belt is just to link corruption.
To me, that is what we are having. Because I don't see us having a state. Even when Brian was saying that there was a Zondo commission, now the report has been submitted about this Zondo commission.
I'm sure the first one is a man. The second one now has been also submitted. The third one can be submitted. These are going to take the in essence we will know them in five years, ten years that there was a Zondo commission. And if you can ask who was ever arrested about that Zondo commission, nobody will ever be arrested.
It's just a waste of money of the government and all these things. But in a nutshell, we are saying in the long run, we are saying that yes, life in life. You must move with technology. In essence, we need to be open and honest that you can't just be against technology.
in your life as you live. Because you can't expect a power station that was done in the 18th century, the one that was done in the 19th century, the one that was done in the 20th century, that they will be effective from now in 20 years, 30 years. So obviously they then can't work. But the reality of the matter is that, to us who are saying this transition must be done, in a way that accommodates employment of the worker and also generates more work.
Because technology by nature limits work. If you can convert one thing from an old thing to a new thing under technology, the likelihood is that the new one is not going to employ more people than the ones that were used in the previous time because of technology always get revolutionized. It gets improved. It sometimes many times work for itself if well programmed and that is where as the unions obviously our issue is that the government are talking about this transition. The government never met with us as trade union.
so that we must jointly create a framework that must work for us. But a little joy that we are still having is that the current minister is talking our language when he says that you can't just do away with the code. But we don't know how far he will be sustained to say this language. We don't know how far it will go with him to sustain this language.
We know that it may talk this language, try to soften us, but at a later stage, create some loss, and so that at least it becomes soft and it tames us. But at the end of the day, they must achieve what they want to achieve by taming us. But let me conclude by saying we appreciate the support that other countries are giving us. appreciate the organizations that are working with us, helping us with some information that ourselves alone as trade unions, we may not go and scratch deeper on that information.
And I'm hopeful that after the NUM Congress, we are not afraid. Probably we may take resolutions that shows that we may create a very big match. and put our position very well, because by then we'll also be mandated by the Congress that that is the highest decision-making body, and that involves branches, regions and the branches, as to what then is going to be way forward. And, yeah, I'm sure some of the resolutions that I see currently, and some are still going to come, may make us then to take a very hard stance.
positions. But we are fortunate because we strongly believe that there is much possibility that ministers will come, the president himself may come. If this time he will have the courage, the last policy conference, he didn't come.
If he has got courage, he comes. And fortunately enough, the minister was from NUM, this president was from NUM. We are the first union before he was elected to pronounce that he can be the president of the country. We will engage him and tell him that we are not happy. He's more business-embracing than labor-embracing.
Even when some of these things affect us, he doesn't even come and share with us and understand our own view. And we will challenge him that if that becomes his stance, we'll be the first people to disown him. But no, we think that power is too much and it's going to the head. When power is too much going to the head, it will cause problems.
We need to manage that. I thank you. Thanks, Comrade William. I hope you can stay on for some questions and answers. We have a couple more speakers, as you know.
But I'm pleased to introduce comrade Enos Mbode from NMSA. He's the national officer for representing the ESCOMM workers, NMSA members in ESCOMM. He's also, although he's not speaking for the commission today, he's on the president's just transition commission that was set up a year and a half ago or so with other union involvement and also other groups. We've worked very closely with NMSA AIDC and CHUED and on the development of Escon Transformed and we've had the privilege of being able to partner with NMSA.
Just to remind comrades who can go back 10 years, it was 10 years ago this month that NMSA convened a conference in South Africa that said that renewable energy was too important to be in private hands and the conference was a big success. And at the moment, 10 years later, there's only four gigawatts or so of renewable energy in the country based on the privatization model of independent power producers. So the door is open for a public pathway approach.
And that would follow the example of other countries. So I'll hand it over to Enos now. Good to see you, comrade. Thank you so very much.
Thank you. I think, firstly, let me. greet you comrades and a special thanks for the invite and thanks to my comrade Dominic from AIDC for a very sober presentation and also thanks to the AGS of NUM comrade William Mababa. Thank you very much for that good presentation.
And maybe just to set the foundation, I mean, a lot has been said by the comrades that I've mentioned, which I agree with. And I just want to add and say the Climate Change Commission, I will just mention that the Climate Change Commission, the Presidential Climate Change Commission that I sit in, has got a mountain to climb. climb with regards to a whole lot of things that have been mentioned here. And it is clear that there is a lot of contestations and it means we need to be clear of our tactics to win in those battles that are led by private capital and the government.
Let me say the following. South Africa has got a challenge of having to deal with climate change issues, adaptation and mitigation and all that in the midst of a serious energy crisis. Energy crisis caused by, amongst others, corruption, poor planning and mismanagement of what was available. in order to generate for the country and the economy. Now, we are dealing with two things at the same time.
We are dealing with climate issues, but we are also dealing with energy generation shortage. I just want to indicate that through load shedding, we have seen companies closing down, investing elsewhere because of... instability in this generation in the supply of energy and some even mentioned the issue of the cost of energy electricity so also we have seen a whole lot of municipalities that are able to generate self-generate to want to self-generate coming into the picture which exactly means there are some jobs that are going to be lost and we are not going to be able to retrieve them. Let me just say to you that the jobs that are lost through load shedding shows that whatever it is that we were arguing against, unbundling to be precise, is not delivering the results as it was taunted.
We were told that this... was going to be a solution to the crisis that we have of energy. It was also going to be a solution to deal with corruption and all that.
But it is clear that that is not the case. In essence, we are going to lose more jobs because we do understand that when private capital takes over, when there is a capitalistic grab, we as the poor and the working class are at the losing end of the battle. Because there is no way capital will do away with profit for humanity, for the poor and the working class.
There is no way that will happen. But we do understand that in South Africa, for instance, these structural adjustments are happening elsewhere around. We have a government which is saying it is okay to introduce private capital to take over stakes in your public.
companies, and they do believe that the private hands are saintly. We don't believe that is the case because of the corruption that has been linked to private capital in South Africa. I mean, it has already been mentioned by the two comrades who spoke before me that the Zondo Commission is clearly showing that privatization... is not a solution because private capital is invested in corruption in a very big way in South Africa.
So to hand over the just transition to them is to privatize the transition and to take it away from the poor and the working class which is not going to be helpful at all. And thank you to AIDC and to Ed and Sean. for putting together, for helping us put together the ESCOM Transformed Achieving a Just Energy Transition for South Africa, which is an alternative which is very, very clear.
Clearly, also understanding the socio-economical challenges of South Africa, of poverty, unemployment and inequality. To do any transition in South Africa without taking note of those, it is to exclude. a big amount of people in the transition.
It is to hand over the transition to be run by the private capital together with the government. And those shared solutions between the government and the private capital is not going to be the solution that will include the masses, our people. As I conclude, I want to say this, what the World Bank and the IMF are doing is to pencil some sort of an instruction which is neoliberalistic in nature, in that you get even, you get to be instructed what you must do when you get the money. I do understand South Africa went to Glasgow and twerked and danced for money.
whose conditionalities are not clear for South Africans. And in a sense, it actually would mean that what we hear from the finance ministers speaking of shedding of jobs in ESCOM is something that has been taken out of the textbook of the World Bank, because they are indeed not going to look at our challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality. They are going to vanguard the profit for the profit seekers who today are coming up with solutions in inverted commas, solutions to the crisis of energy in South Africa and also dealing with climate in South Africa by instructing the government, by instructing that there should be stakes for the private hands to control the energy. So indeed, we will lose energy democracy.
The people of South Africa are not going to be able to have a say with regards to how, what kind of energy generation suits their needs. We are going to also lose energy sovereignty in that we are not going to be able to control what it is that is generating the electricity for us. So it is very, very important to note that these are worrisome.
and we need to have a serious pushback. I am happy that we've got AIDC, we've got trade unions, we have got federations, COSAT, we've got SOFTO, we've got NOMSA, we've got NUM, who have got to join their hands together because our logos, our emblems means nothing when we lose the battle this big. This is the biggest transformation that is happening which should not happen without us leading it.
The poor and the working class are supposed to be part of it and are supposed to not only be part of it, but must be the biggest beneficiary because they are a bigger part of the population in South Africa. And I've already said I'm closing, but you see, it won't be fair. to close without mentioning the dynamics of the global north and the global south in that the global south is largely developing countries who are taking instructions from the global north because the global north will tell you that they've got technology and they've got finance and it would seem like our governments are bending backwards and they don't have the political will to push back they have got a desire to take up the money and sacrifice the workers and wage a war to the workers.
And the workers are supposed to stand up and fight for themselves. And I am sure that is going to be the case in South Africa. I will end by saying we save forward with socially owned renewable sector. We are staying down with the just transition that is driven by the World Bank.
by the IMF and private capital. We are for inclusive transformational agenda and which includes a majority of our people, their input, and also which is beneficial, which is going to really change their lives. Transformation, I mean, just transition will never be just transition if there is no fairness and justice.
Thank you so very much. I will stop right here. Thank you. That's great. Thanks very much, Comrade John Great from CHUED coming in to introduce our next speaker.
But I just wanted to say thank you and acknowledge those very rich and indeed sobering and thought-provoking contributions. I think this is a really important conversation and we're really pleased that we're able to create the space where it can happen. I wanted to introduce our next speaker, Brian Comanzi, who is a... an energy policy researcher at the Institute for Economic Justice.
Brian, please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is you have an engineering background, electrical engineering. And Brian has been, I think, paying attention to the debates around ESCOM in South Africa for a while and recently wrote a piece. particularly trying to draw lessons from what's happening in the EU and the UK for the situation in South Africa and for what's happening with ESCOM.
And that is part of the reason that we invited Brian to this call. I think as most people on this call, if not everyone will understand, we see a crucial part of what TUED is working to do is to build the connections and draw the lessons from different national contexts, different regions, as part of building an international movement that can deal with not just the need for very decisive action toward public ownership in various national contexts, but also a cooperative international effort. to get the kinds of technologies that are going to be required for the transition into the places where they're needed and so forth.
And I'm going to take, I'm going to steal 30 seconds to just acknowledge something that I should have mentioned earlier, that that international dimension I think is reflected very importantly in the work that we've done over the past year in particular on the trade union program for a public energy future, which I mentioned we've had some recent sign-ons to that. What I neglected to mention is that that was also the work not just of TUEAD, PSI, and FNME-CGT, but also of a task force that included dozens of representatives of unions and allies from, I think, nearly 20 countries around the world, many of whom are on the call today. So I just wanted to acknowledge that.
I won't go through names or anything, but just to make sure that that was understood. And I'm going to put a link both to Brian's recent piece and to at least the English version of the trade union program. in the chat just for convenience.
I think we have some people on the call who may not be fully familiar with these materials. And there are Spanish and French versions of the program available at links there in the English version, if the translators could pass that along. I think we have now a Portuguese version as well that we'll hopefully work to get online.
So with that, apologies for the little diversion, the indulgence. I'll pass to Brian, who we've asked to speak to his recent work and to reflect and respond to the contributions that have been made so far and the struggle against the kind of green structural adjustment, privatization, unbundling agenda as it's playing out in South Africa. Okay, Brian, over to you. Thanks very much. Glad you could join us.
I want to confirm that you can hear me clearly. Yes, you're good. Okay, fantastic.
Greetings, comrades. My name is Brian Comanzi. I'm calling you today from Tata in South Africa.
I'm working currently at the IEJ, but I've been following some of the work that the TUED has been doing, AIDC has been doing for years, very much in support for the action against unbindling. And when I just focus for the next 10 minutes, I'll try and be brief so that we can have a good engagement. get to some questions, but around some of the negative, possible negative consequences, near-term consequences of privatization and unbundling and just ground and hopefully give a little bit of texture to some of what is unfolding in the South African environment.
So first of all, South Africa is, for those who are not familiar, South Africa's energy sector is dominated by state monopoly, which consolidates generation transmission distribution. At the moment, There is currently an amendment to the existing act which empowers the state utility to be consolidated that has legally set up the basis for unbundling. And that's out for comment in the next 30 days. So there's already been a functional separation of the utility into separate transmission distribution and generation entities. And that will be followed by the formal appointment of boards.
if it is allowed to pass through, and then the legal separation of those entities. At the same time that that proposal has been released, there's been an electricity pricing policy document that has been released. And that's very significant for this discussion because it also demonstrates a lot of the duplicitousness of how the private sector is also greenwashed.
some of the market reforms that it has established. So I think a lot of the negative consequences that very few people want to own are found in the electricity pricing policy. And I'll speak very quickly to those in a second.
But the pricing mechanisms, which would be more familiar to unions, perhaps definitely in Chile, but also in the EU and the UK, which reflect an unbundled sector, which divide costs up into generation, distribution and transmission. I'm just going to share a couple of slides for the next five minutes or so. Sorry, it says that it's been disabled. That'd be just enabled for me. Hang on one second.
Let's try that again. Okay. Okay. Try that now. Yeah.
Great. Okay. You should be able to see my screen.
Fantastic. So just for the benefit of those who may not be familiar, here's a snapshot of what a typical generation profile looks like in South Africa. This is taken for a week in October, a week where there was significant load shedding.
In black, you'll see coal. And in this particular week, about 50% of the coal fleet was offline. In green, you'll see PV.
In dark blue, you'll see wind. The current operating philosophy is essentially that the load... supply and demand is balanced on a 24-hour basis and then on a four-second basis.
On a 24-hour basis, the day before, the utility pre-arranges to purchase a particular amount of coal that will match a certain percentage of the demand and then uses a mixture of the rest of the energy sources based on cost and other factors and tries to match supply and demand in real time, in real time, then being four seconds. Wind and solar, because the wind blows when it blows and the sun shines when it shines, are integrated as and when they are needed, unless there is curtailment, but we won't go into that today. So very quickly, what does the structure look like?
So the top is the current structure, where everything is blue, is monopolized by ESCOM. Some of distribution is under ESCOM. Most of distribution is under municipalities.
The proposed change. So the system operator is the entity that ensures the stability. So that mechanism that I was talking about, the day ahead and the four second balancing. This will now be held, if these reforms are allowed to go through, by an independent system market operator.
And part of the idea of taking it out of ESCOM is that public utilities tend to privilege purchasing electricity from their own generators. So this will use a cost function to determine what energy is bought from a mixture of public and private. But the current leadership of ESCOM and government have made it clear that they see private generation playing a bigger role.
So one can imagine over time, if their vision is realized, that public generation will be almost nothing. So there is a trading level that is introduced before the customer, which in simple terms simply means that the market will set the price. So generators will bid at particular windows. It could be a day ahead windows.
It could be a week, a month ahead windows for prices and the market will determine. what price the consumer can purchase electricity from. So that exposes, of course, consumers to volatility in price, which could come from a number of factors that are beyond their control, which is currently not a factor in South Africa.
Prices are set by NERSA over longer durations, and they're already considered unaffordable. So just to give a sense of performance, so over the last two years, so this is from 2020, and green is the main thing for this discussion that I want us to focus on. Green is the amount of availability of the public fleet.
So that, of course, has also been tied to the arguments around why we need to privatize. As the performance has dropped for a few weeks in 2020, we're up to 70% over the last six months or so. We've hovered in the late 50s up to the early 60s. What this means is that if less of the public fleet is available and the government is made it clear it doesn't want to put money in, in establishing more public generation, whatever energy technology, it must supplement that deficit by purchasing new private generation plants. So it creates the decline of our public utilities directly related to the profit opportunities in private generation.
Now the unfortunate thing about linking that to renewable energy is that because renewable energy is variable and it often needs balancing generators, so I'll just very very quickly... show a slide for example this is this is in over that same period what wind and solar looked like you if you were to rely on more wind and solar you would need balancing generators in order to match supply and demand and that this this kind of phenomena happens in grids all over the world in in the new electricity pricing document the balancing the the generator that delivers the mass megawatt hours which is considered the balancing generator is the generator that sets the price So it means if you have more private renewables, you'll be tied to the price of gas, because they have also identified through their privatization path that private solar, wind and gas will be the mechanism for achieving a just transition. So we will be exposed to gas prices. Gas prices are volatile.
South Africa currently has very limited access to domestic gas. And if we can help it, we want to expand that. but which will also mean that if their plan is implemented, we'll be reliant on imports for gas, which are also dollar-delimited and exposes to more volatility.
Under electricity liberalization, that then also means that the utility is able to, and this is the last slide I'll show before we can open up for some questions, is that a greater portion of our current prices will go towards covering the true cost of what it costs ESCOM to produce electricity. So here's the blue line. This is...
before significant just transition mechanisms. And I just want to be clear that just transition will require tremendous investment. I can talk a little bit why later.
This is the current status quo. So ESCOM's argument is that they're already selling electricity at a loss, a significant portion of that. Their costs go to debt servicing. They're unable to even recover. They're unable to recover from tariffs what they're servicing in debt.
which is why governments has offered to provide them bailouts. So electricity prices will rise higher to serve some of that debt. We will be taking further debt if we align ourselves with the World Bank.
The World Bank has also set up facilities to provide more debt for enabling infrastructure like batteries. And I suspect that some of that 8.5 billion that Sean alluded to earlier will go to transmission. um which will mean if we're struggling to service on it now um what will change in future unless prices increase taxes have in our last the budget speech happened two days ago or a day ago and corporate taxes dropped by one percent so if you don't recoup that funds from tax you have to recoup that funds to rates.
So it's unfortunate the part that we're going through, no matter how much the private sector is greenwashed, it is clear, it's becoming increasingly clear that the public is being asked to absorb the risk. The profits are then being absorbed by private entities, both with their small local partners who are mainly asset managers and engineering and finance institutions abroad, largely in Europe and North America. and the just transition will be something that is potentially spoken about bitterly unless unions and progressive sections of the environmentalist movement can take a stand.
So I'll leave it here for now. Great, thanks so much for that Brian. I just want to thank all of the speakers. who spoke today, this was really helped pull together a really clear picture of what is happening currently in South Africa and the battles that both unions and NGOs and civil society are up against in terms of fighting the battles against privatization.
So at this point in the program, I'd like to open it up for questions or comments. from anyone who is here. If you want to raise your hand, that would probably be the easiest way to do this.
So comrades, the floor is open. Can I suggest, Irene, that we've been joined by Lara Merling, who was formerly at the International Trade Union Confederation in Washington, who monitors. and now is it the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University.
They monitor, they have their own task force on IMF and their work of the IMF on climate and the whole structural adjustment agenda. So while comrades are getting their thoughts together and thinking about their contributions, perhaps we can ask Lara to say a few words. That'd be fantastic. Hi, thanks Sean for the intro.
And everyone for your remarks. And yes, when it comes to the IMF, what we have seen is first this thing that maybe was promising at them coming out and saying, you know, climate is important. We must act and positioning themselves in this progressive way. But now what we see is that they've taken a lot of the language that we use and are making it to mean nothing because they just released this week their first, you know, article for. paper that was mentioned already on South Africa's transition.
And, you know, they say they support a just transition, but then to them, just transition means taking away labor rights, privatizing everything, and just making that just, you know, diluting the meaning and having it be nothing, but then still being able to, when they release a press release, you know, statement out, say, we support a just transition. So that's going to be difficult to kind of push back against if people are not paying attention to the details, which are just, you know, as everyone said, it's just structural adjustment with some green words added there. And that's something that, you know, it didn't work for decades to develop, to like get development.
So now it's supposed to work on both development and climate without changing anything. Great. Thank you, Lara, for that.
Okay. Are there any comrades that want to come in? I see Sam's hand.
Go ahead, Sam. Yeah, thanks, Irene. And thanks to all the speakers.
Yeah, so I should just say I'm from Public and Commercial Services Trade Union in the UK, and we are one of the signatories to the program that Tured and others have produced and very proud to be part of that. But I just want to say, I mean, it's really important for us to hear from the speakers and obviously this agreement that was made at the COP last year, because we've got an enormous amount of... of work to do here in the UK to understand about the energy system within our... trade unions and obviously in the wider climate movement. So I think that's really important to hear those contributions and I think putting those terms and the kind of language that's been used obviously around the green structural adjustment but also Bodhi who's spoken at some of our meetings we did around the COP coalition as well about the privatisation of the just transition because I think you know this has to be nearly really clearly understood so.
So I haven't really got any questions. I think there's been a lot to take in there. But really it was just to reach out because I'm part of a group that we organise what has now become a COP coalition, Trade Union Caucus. So obviously leading up to the COP in Egypt this year, we're trying to focus each meeting on a very specific topic and ensure that there's a dimension, obviously for Africa.
in each of those meetings and I hope that we'll be able to invite you along some of the speakers here to our meetings. We haven't decided it yet but it's very likely the next one which is due on the 15th of March I think that we want to focus on the public ownership and of energy and these programs so I will obviously be in touch with the TUED team about that and you know hopefully reaching out to some of you and I think just the final point I wanted to make. It's been hard enough at the end of last week thinking about how we're going to keep these issues on the agenda with the cost of living crisis as we call it in the UK and everything else that's happening and the energy crisis.
Obviously we've now got the situation in Ukraine and needless to say that is going to drown out everything else and obviously we've got to give our solidarity. comrades in Ukraine and Russia and elsewhere. So we have to think and be attentive to the fitting this agenda with this complex and increasingly, well, tragic global situation, particularly in Europe right now, is how we ensure that we don't lose sight of these discussions.
Thank you. Thanks, Sam. Sam was one of the main organizers for the trade union caucus of COP26.
So as their work is continuing and growing, it's exciting. And as we move towards COP27, I think their work will continue to expand. So if anybody's interested, Sam, could you put your email into the chat so people could be in touch with you if they want to participate?
Thanks for that. I see a hand from Batumelo. Comrade, go ahead. Thank you, Irene.
My name is Batumelo Molete and I am from Pusatu. I think it's important to note that Pusatu has been quite clear that we are against any form of privatization of ESCOM. We have gone through the... We were at COP26, myself and Comrade Lubkhang Olaisi, who's one of the commissioners on the Presidential Climate Change Commission. We have welcomed the announcement and we have engaged the minister at the Needlehead Labour School.
We were very clear that we wanted the minister to explain to us what it is that this transaction, this deal actually means for labour in South Africa. And how it is that labour will be incorporated into this deal that was announced. So what I'm trying to say is basically that labour has been very clear that we want to be engaged, we want to be part of. this discussion and that the minister as well as the department cannot go and take this deal and want to speak on our behalf.
We have various issues that we raised including that we want this to be something that will benefit workers of South Africa, workers in ESCOM which was one of the biggest mentions in COP26 that this would give relief to ESCOM. However we wouldn't want to be in any form of indebtedness from this deal. So Kasatu is trying to engage this.
We are planning to have similar engagements like this one with workers across our affiliates to try to articulate this and try to dissect it in a way that we would be able to understand. What the minister indicated to us at the Labour School is that she, the department, as well as the country, has not accepted this deal. They themselves are still trying to dissect it.
and kind of it's formulates a model in which this is going to work. We've been clear that there is no just transition without workers. We've been clear that we want a just transition that will create decent green jobs.
We want a just transition that would be accommodating to social protection of workers, and we wouldn't want to leave workers too destitute. So we're very clear as to what we want and how we want to champion this. Therefore, it is important that labour organises and labour comes together to be able to actually...
formulate a position and a way in which we can actually go through this whole deal and see how it is going to benefit us. And if it's not, labor is within their rights to reject this deal and articulate to government their position. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing that and for sharing Kasatu's position right now. Thank you. Alex, I see your hand up.
Hi, Tom. Thanks. It's Alex Nsone here from the South African Climate Justice Coalition. I think Wojt Mello actually took a lot of the words that I was hoping to say, because I think it's important that we don't see this, what was essentially a political declaration as a done deal. We haven't got the writing in place in terms of what it means, right?
And so it's still a site for contestation. And so I think this is a really important moment for us. to be pushing to ensure that any conditions that come with it are not locking in with the structural adjustment issues that we are actually worried about and appreciate the concerns that comrades are raising.
So this does seem like a moment where we do need to raise our voices and push for something that is more in the public's benefit. We as the Climate Justice Coalition are calling for a green ESCOM and more. socially early renewable energy. So we do want to stand together with Comrade and ensure that we're not locked into structural adjustments in the guises of climate finance or climate progress. So yeah, I just want to send that message of solidarity.
Thank you. Thanks. Excuse me.
Thanks for that, Alex. I see a few things in the chat. I don't know if anybody wants to come in that has put some comments into the chat or questions rather. John, John Pye, I see you. Thank you, Irene.
I'll leave the video off because it seems to be a bit jerky. Doesn't work very well. Following on from what was on my mind when I posted.
the notes in the chat about investments made by pension funds, I wondered whether there were genuine investments which presumably are done on a for-profit basis which contribute to real adjustments and changes to energy systems or whether the need to ensure that energy is publicly owned and managed means that no such thing exists that was the first question and specifically in south africa and i should say thank you to the other contributors earlier that they're absolutely brilliant to hear from directly from them about what's happening in South Africa. And the second question was whilst this type of green structural adjustments is being piloted in South Africa, does anybody know whether this is also at an advanced stage? in other countries across the world.
Thank you. Thank you, John. I think Sean has a response to your question and then we'll take David.
Thanks, Irene. Thanks, John, for your question. We're coming, Tured is coming out with a paper in the next couple of months on global public goods.
And. the need for a new approach. And one of the parts of the document I think might be most interesting is that that actually looks at this idea of blended finance or that are supposed to catalyze private sector investment. I think it's worth noting that $8.5 billion is really a drop in the bucket even in South Africa in terms of the what's needed to do an energy transition, to change the entire generation structure, to upgrade the transmission systems. So it sounds like a lot of money, but it's really, the hope is it's going to lead to crowd in private investment.
Then this raises the question, well, what is the terms? Private investment will not go into South Africa unless they are guaranteed returns. And That applies to pension funds or any other sort of institutional investor. And I think this is where the problem is for the unbundling model. You can pass a law in Parliament saying we are going to divisionally separate the system, but you're not physically separating the system.
It's an administrative and political move. And then, you know, urging those entities, generation, transmission. and distribution to operate as basically they have to attract their own investment. This is the sort of model.
The problem is the investment doesn't come because the neoliberal policy has put risk into the power sector back in the 1980s and 90s. The risk was supposed to increase competition, but it means that nobody is going to put up large sums of money, upfront capital, unless they're guaranteed a return. And I think this is the fundamental Achilles heel.
of neoliberal policy is and it cannot produce the investment no matter no matter what the incentives to the private sector the private sector will not respond as long as there is either political risk or market risk and there's plenty of that in the energy sector right now not just in south africa but all over the world so this is the opens the door to this public pathway approach and um so you know i think that's the sort of uh If when the paper comes out, we can have a global forum on it. But it also analyzes how little private investment has been mobilized. So all of this talk about mobile catalyzing is actually what's happening is that the public money from the development banks is carrying the bulk of the money anyway.
And the amount of capital mobilized from the private sector is paltry. Read the reports to COP26 from the Climate Finance Commission. that looked into this and they're embarrassed comrades they're embarrassed because they have not moved the private sector despite all the soirees and the bottles of champagne and all the pledges by the institutional investors that they're going to invest trillions in the climate uh fight they have not done so and it's it's it's it's basically a political time bomb that's waiting to go off for the neoliberal institutions on this question but we can have another forum on that later maybe. I'll stop there. Thanks for that, Sean.
We're going to move to David who had his hand raised. David. Thanks, Irene. David Boyes from Public Services International here. And just to be sure, Sean, you weren't there when all the champagne was being poured, I'm assuming.
I think Sean's characterization is absolutely appropriate. He said in about 60 seconds what the research paper says in about 10 pages. But look, for public service pension funds to invest, one of the ways, and public service workers pension funds are the bulk of the pension funds where workers have a say on investment, is through public bonds, public obligations. But the problem is our finance managers, in other words, the people we outsource to manage the money to ensure that the members have a decent retirement, they are straight from finance and often they're the worst of finance.
And I don't know if... If we pulled up the quote from the former head of sustainable investment for BlackRock, which is the world's largest investment manager, but this guy. I mean, basically, he quit after two, three years.
And he's saying, you know, I'll try to find it. And I think Tewit may have it. But this guy is saying, look, don't believe it. It's all greenwash.
It's all bluewash. He didn't say it's all bullshit, but I would. But I guess my question to our South African comrades, based on our experience in PSI of fighting privatization.
is we understand that at one level, labor's got to be leading this. The unions, especially in energy, are typically very strong and have good capabilities. They're able to educate and mobilize their members. But we have increasingly recognized that labor can't win these fights on their own.
And so the challenge then is for labor. to reach into the communities in which members live and to organize communities to demand the end to privatization, but also more importantly, the creation of strong, democratically controlled energy systems that meet the needs of the people. And so, you know, part of the problems we see in a number of countries is when the energy systems, even though public don't meet the needs of the people, how can the people then stand up and say, that's what we want when we don't have it? So there's a real process involved of both working in the company, improving the performance of the company, working with the managers, because oftentimes the mid-level management, those who are not politically appointed, are with the unions. They don't want...
privatization because they understand what's going to happen when the financiers take over. And so, you know, that's one area where the work has got to be done. But how do we create the political pressure amongst the communities so that we can get the support for the various pieces needed for a strong, publicly owned, low carbon? energy system. And I must admit that the low carbon angle in terms of privatization is a relatively new addition to what is already a fairly complex fight.
And so just trying to see how the unions in South Africa are positioning to take on these multiple challenges at once. Thanks much. Thanks, David. I see that it's half past the hour, which is supposed to be when we're ending, and I want to really be conscious of the time of our interpreters, but I'm asking to go five minutes over so we can take Hameda and then have Enos come back. So in the next five minutes, if people can keep their comments brief, that would be great.
Over to you, Hameda. um how many are you there oh there we go uh we can't hear you so yes yes can you hear me yes great thanks hi so this is Hamidaa Hamidaa we lost you hello yes hi can you hear me now you're going in and out a bit Thank you very much. My name is Hamida and I'm the research on Bukhdartu.
Hi, can you hear me now? Privatization in this actually decredited or discredited ESCOM. Can you hear me? Okay, let me, I'll put it in the chat.
Okay, that would be great if you could put in the chat. You're going in and out a bit. Thank you. Let's see, I know Enos wanted to come back.
but I've lost your hand. Can I go ahead? Yes, please. There you go.
No, I will be very short. I think we need to be thankful, grateful for the contributions of the questions of the contributions. But I must just answer the part that says, what then do we do as trade unions in South Africa? I think we need to manage the struggles of the shop floor and the communities because it's very, very important. Energy transition is not only a shop floor thing.
And we do believe that we work together well with COSATU. And I think we can do much better between the federations, between the trade unions, also trying to mobilize and work with the communities and civil movements. in getting what we really want as our deal as a country. I do believe that it is possible to do that. We can mobilize, we can put together a very strong pushback.
And just to also answer, to also indicate that even the deal that is on the table right now of COP26, we can already see the blueprint of it in its current nature. We need to be... able to read deep into it but we need to push back anything that says privatization and our rejection is on the basis of it being in the private hands and and we are not rejecting it simply because it is help coming our way we are rejecting it because we know what privatization can do lastly you could have seen the issue of what is being proposed about the market forces determining prices and the issues of taking NERSA out of the way, taking the government out of the way and regulation. I think we push back on the basis of things like those. And we do believe that together with civil movements and all the trade unions working together, we will win this.
Thank you. Thanks so much, Comrade Enos. And I think we're at the end of our time. I just want to close by saying, first of all, thank you to all the speakers. And I think several points were raised towards the end in particular about the need to build our movements and mobilize people in the trade unions, but also in the communities and bring coalitions together, working together towards a common platform.
And in this case, I think Sean mentioned that this is a winnable fight. that there is traction gaining around the world in the fight against privatization, and that we can push back, we can oppose the neoliberal reforms that are being put out to us, and we can build international solidarity, build our movement, and come together. And that COP27 is a great opportunity, as we have several months to plan what we're doing, and already there's been...
a fair amount of movement building among the trade unions and in civil society towards these cops. And that we can build on a united fight, we can build on a united fight that challenges neoliberal policy and challenges privatization in particular around energy so that we can move towards a just energy transition. And I'll just share that 2ED has been trying to put together and solidify more of an idea of what we're calling 2ED South, where we're trying to focus our work more on the issues that are emerging in regions that are considered the global south and the struggles there against privatization. We see trends that are similar that are taking place.
where neoliberal energy reforms are being pushed. And we are trying to build and mobilize around those issues and deepen our own knowledge and research around that. But also we invite those from the Global South to participate in these efforts and we'll be doing additional global forums throughout the course of this year.
to try and highlight some of the issues that are coming up. Sean, I don't know if you want to come back in. Just very briefly, Irene, thank you.
I mean, I think what we've flagged in CHUED over the last two or three years is there is definitely a research deficit that we need to address. These are complicated questions. We need carefully thought policy alternatives that we can take to members, but...
are they may be on the street, it may be. fairly simple formulations about what we need. But if we don't have the detail in terms of backing it up and what the alternative is, and the sort of detail that Brian Comanzi brought into the discussion today, and that is also in the life experience of the unions we were talking to, I think that's going to be crucial. So we're appealing, CHUED's appealing for unions to help us get the resources to do the job.
We're coming out in the next few months with the task force report on a public energy future, but it's really just scratching the surface and there's more reports are needed. So we need to address that deficit, but also at the same time, politically mobilize, build support for a clear agenda at COP27. I think COP27, an Africa COP, could be the equivalent of Seattle 1999, maybe not in numbers on streets, but in terms of the political impact. turnaround because we've seen in the data, the emissions are back to where they were in 2019. The use of fossil fuels is growing.
The neoliberal institutions and those who follow them can say all they want that the transition is inevitable and the market is doing its job. But what we're seeing is the growth of coal, oil and gas, more pollution, more global warming. And of course, workers being pushed out of the energy sector, along with government so we can put this public pathway agenda forward.
And I'm looking forward to working with our comrades on that, as we all are together to get something moving. I'll stop there. Thanks, Sean. And thanks again, everyone for joining today. And again, for the contributions of the speakers from South Africa.
really appreciate all the work that you're doing on the ground. If you'd like to unmute and say goodbye, please feel free to do so. Otherwise we'll see you at the next two-ed global forum. Thanks everybody.
And thank you to the interpreters. Oh yes. Thank you.
Interpreters as always and for staying extra time. Thanks all. Thanks to all of you.
Thanks to it. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Everybody. Bye-bye. Bye. Thanks, comrades.
Saludos. Saludos. And hello, Tunisian comrades.
Thanks for joining today. Gracias.