openDemocracy: Was 2017 the year that the tide finally turned against fossil fuel projects?

The AXA decision comes just weeks after BNP Paribas broke the news that it will no longer finance new shale or tar sands projects, nor work with companies that mainly focus on those resources. Last Friday, Norway’s largest life insurer, KLP announced that it would exclude from its portfolio any firms that derive 30 percent or more of revenues from the extraction of tar sands. In the same week the World Bank announced it would cease financing upstream oil and gas after 2019.

It’s welcome news. Based on the financial risks, climate impacts and indigenous rights violations, we have seen a significant shift in financial institutions backing fossil fuels. The Bank of England now recognizes the monetary risks associated with climate change and is advising the central banks and governments to get out of highly polluting fuels due to the pending carbon bubble and the bad business associated with ‘extreme’ energy extraction. As a result BP, Shell, Exxon and others have pulled out of major tar sands projects and pipelines. [...]

The Canadian government has done little to recognise indigenous land titles. Tar sands expansion continues at an alarming rate, with even more pipelines being approved. We cannot rely on Prime Minister Trudeau’s support to join the climate action force anytime soon. [...]

All of these decisions and ‘wins’ need to be grounded in an intersectional divestment movement that takes the time to think about the reinvestment strategies, that is twinned with a just transition model and opens up the seats at the table for dialogue with those most impacted by climate change and holding the climate solutions. If we can do this, 2018 is going to be an incredible year for our movements and hope for the climate.

read the article

openDemocracy: What motivated the 60,000 people who joined the far-right Polish Independence March?

On November 11th, the same woman who had taken it upon herself to spread Szczęsny’s words, Gabriela Lazarek, entered a Catholic Church where the far-right Independence March organisers held their pre-demonstration mass. She held a sign that quoted the late Polish Pope John Paul II: ‘Racism is a sin that constitutes a serious offence against God’. She was pushed out of the church while the priest lectured about the importance of nationalism and Polishness. The congregation later joined 60 000 people in the Independence March.

In Poland, we rarely talk about racism – it is wrongly understood as something that Poland has little historical encounter with. Racism has a long, if not often talked about, history in Poland. Racism in Poland is expressed through ways in which racialised people have been treated in the country, including Jews, Roma and Muslims. We can’t ignore the connection between race and Polish homogeneity, where whiteness and racial politics have become key to a nationalist project promoted by the current Polish government that perceives heterogeneity as a threat. [...]

Nationalism expressed through racist sentiments has become mainstream in Poland. In Poland, like other parts of Europe, racist views are on the rise and becoming more commonplace acceptable with the shift to the right following the election of the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) party. As Rafał Pankowski of the Nigdy Więcej [Never Again Association] emphasised, there is a climate of acceptance for extreme nationalist ideology. In 2016, the organisation recorded the ‘biggest wave of hatred’ in the country’s recent history, reporting several incidents taking place every day. While the mainstreaming of racist discourse and corresponding violence has to be partially attributed to the current ruling party, the phenomenon of racism in Poland is not new, even if it is rarely discussed. [...]

The Polish Law and Justice (PiS) government needs to take concrete actions against the culture of hate that is growing, and going unpunished, in Poland. It is time for Poles to recognise that Poland has a problem with racism, that the nationalism currently promoted by its government and right-wing groups is intimately tied to a long history of dangerous racial exclusion. It is time that the call to action of Piotr Szczęsny be answered by all sections of the Polish society: “We, ordinary human beings, like you, hear your call – and we won’t wait any longer!”.

read the article

Foreign Affairs: Europe's Authoritarian Equilibrium

For the time being, EU politics is trapped in an authoritarian equilibrium. In this half-baked steady state, the union has become politicized enough that the EU-level allies of these semi-authoritarian governments have both the tools and the incentives to protect them from censure; but the EU has not become sufficiently politicized for the opponents of these governments to intervene in order to rein them in or break their grip on power. Ironically, the EU, which has done so much to promote democracy across Europe—indeed it won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 partly for that reason—now provides a safe haven (and ample funding) for semi-authoritarian regimes such as those in Hungary and Poland. The Commission’s latest action on Poland is a step in the right direction, but the EU will not escape this authoritarian equilibrium until it addresses the situation in Hungary as well.

Why has the EU more forcefully countered attacks on the rule of law in Poland than in Hungary? In part, the difference can be explained by the blatantly unconstitutional nature of the PiS government’s attack on judicial independence and its brazen dismissal of the Commission’s efforts at dialogue. Although Prime Minister Viktor Orban has successfully taken over the judiciary in Hungary, his government had a legislative supermajority that enabled it to amend the constitution to allow for the takeover. And when the European Commission did challenge aspects of Hungary’s judicial reforms, the Orban government at least pretended to take these complaints seriously and make some superficial changes to address them.  [...]

Kaczynski has fewer friends. His PiS government does not enjoy the protection of a powerful EU-level party such as the EPP—it is a member of a small, marginal group of nationalists called the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). The ECR’s only other significant party is the British Conservative Party, which left the EPP in 2009 for being insufficiently euroskeptic. The Tories have attempted to protect their PiS allies, supporting them even as the vast majority of the European Parliament—including most EPP members—voted in November to condemn Poland’s attack on the rule of law. British Prime Minister Theresa May has also done her part: during a visit to Warsaw on December 21, she hinted that her government might support Poland against the European Commission, saying, “These constitutional issues are normally, and should be primarily a matter for the individual country concerned.” But with the United Kingdom soon to leave the EU, May has little leverage and PiS finds itself nearly isolated.[...]

For a start, they might expel Fidesz from the EPP, making a clear political statement that the party’s attacks on the independent judiciary, the free press, civil society organizations and the media have no place in the alliance of the democratic center-right. They should also make it clear that in the next multi-annual EU budget, beginning in 2021, EU funding will be tied to respect for democratic values.  Finally, they could take the long overdue step of triggering Article 7 against the Orban government as well, a move that could prevent Hungary from vetoing sanctions against the Polish government.

read the article

Vox: How Trump makes extreme things look normal

The scariest part of Trump's first year as president isn't how abnormal he is, it's how normal he makes everything else look by comparison.

“Don’t normalize this” has become a kind of rallying cry during President Trump’s first year in office -- a reminder to not get too acclimated to Trump’s norm-breaking and erratic behavior. But the real danger of the Trump presidency might have less to do with Trump’s abnormality and more to do with how “normal” he makes other Republicans look by comparison. And the concept of the “Overton Window” helps explain why our politics and media might be warped long after Trump’s presidency comes to an end.

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell: How to Make an Elephant Explode with Science – The Size of Life 2