Addressing the climate emergency demands huge amounts of investment, but it also requires drastic changes to the forms of ownership and governance that underpin the contemporary capitalist economy. We need to move towards models of economic democracy, where everything from investment decisions to wages are decided democratically by workers and citizens. [...]
With 100% of its electricity coming from renewable sources (and more to spare), the German town of Wolfhagen is particularly demonstrative of what can be achieved when municipalities adopt innovative approaches to the ownership and governance of key infrastructure. Significant lessons can be drawn from Wolfhagen’s hybrid model of ownership, which can – and must – be applied to sectors beyond energy production. [...]
What the experience of Wolfhagen shows is that the rapid decarbonisation of our energy supply is wholly compatible with new models of economic democracy. Strong and effective action to address the climate crisis can be met through processes of collective empowerment, without resorting to ecological authoritarianism.
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