TU Delft_MSc2 Theory Thesis_From Extractivism to Energy Democracy_2018

FROM EXTRACTIVISM TO ENERGY DEMOCRACY

An investigation into the political potential of socio-ecological grassroots movements, as a stimulus to decarbonise the UK’s built environment energy infrastructures

AR2AT030 Architecture Theory Final Thesis . Spring Semester 2018 . 22nd June 2018 student name: Michaela Mallia . student number: 4738160 . tutor: Heidi Sohn

FROM EXTRACTIVISM TO ENERGY DEMOCRACY

Delft University of Technology MSc Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences (Track Architecture) AR2AT030 Architecture Theory Thesis June 2018

This study was completed as part of the MSc Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences Programme at Delft University of Technology. The work is my own. Where the work of others is used or drawn on, it is attributed to the relevant source.

Michaela Mallia

Word Count Main body: 10,333 Total: 11,875 ii

FROM EXTRACTIVISM TO ENERGY DEMOCRACY

CONTENTS

List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................................ iv List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................................. v Abstract .................................................................................................................................................................. 6 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 7 1.1

A Context for the Research ..................................................................................................................... 8 1.1.1

Establishing the Need for Radical Change .................................................................................... 8

1.1.2

Extractivism & the Built Environment: Mining for Fossil Fuel & Uranium ................................ 10

1.2 Introducing the United Kingdom as a Case Study .............................................................................. 11 2 An Investigation into the UK’s Struggle with Decarbonisation ......................................................... 13 2.1 The Energy Situation Today .................................................................................................................... 13 2.2 Top-down Decarbonisation: Politico-Economic Barriers to Renewables ......................................... 15 2.3 Bottom-up Decarbonisation: the Power of Socio-ecological Grassroots Movements .................. 18 3 Learning from Germany’s Energiewende ............................................................................................... 22 3.1 The Beginning: a Grassroots Movement ............................................................................................. 22 3.2 Energy Democracy: a New Interaction with Energy Resources ........................................................ 24 3.2.1 Fuel as a Renewable Right ............................................................................................................. 24 3.2.2 An Ecological Economy ................................................................................................................. 25 3.3 Energy Democracy: a Socio-political Lesson ...................................................................................... 25 3.3.1 Learning from the Energiewende’s Mistakes .............................................................................. 26 3.3.2 Seize the Moment ........................................................................................................................... 26 3.3.3 The Power of the Community vs the Individual ......................................................................... 27 3.3.4 Energy as a Commons not a Private Venture ............................................................................ 27 4 From Extractivism to Energy Democracy ............................................................................................... 29 4.1 The Promise of a British Energy Democracy ....................................................................................... 29 4.2 The Symbiotic Potential Between the Progressive Left and Energy Democracy ........................... 30 5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................... 32 References ........................................................................................................................................................... 34 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................................ 38

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FROM EXTRACTIVISM TO ENERGY DEMOCRACY

L IS T OF F IGU RES

Figure 1

Shares of electricity generation, by fuel

Figure 2

Share of energy from renewable sources in the EU member states

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FROM EXTRACTIVISM TO ENERGY DEMOCRACY

L IS T OF A BB R EV IA TION S

CO2

Carbon Dioxide

EU

European Union

GHG

Greenhouse gases

UK

United Kingdom

UN

United Nations

WTO

World Trade Organization

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ABSTRACT This thesis is concerned with the decarbonisation of the UK’s built environment s energy infrastructures.

Globalised neoliberalism and extractivist interests have blockaded the top-down implementation of an energy transition to renewables. In light of this, bottom-up grassroots movements within the built environment represent an important part of the decarbonisation jigsaw puzzle: they possess the ability to fuel a paradigm shift that moves past the failing reformist, environmentalist approach and toward radical, ecological action. As such, the aim of this paper has been to explore the revolutionary and political potential of current socio-ecological forms of participatory action in the UK. By using an empirical comparative methodology, these different participatory practices were compared to the grassroots movements that sparked the beginning of Germany’s Energiewende. The comparison revealed that they possess the potential to be a socio-political stimulus that catalyses the built environment’s shift from fossil fuel extractivism toward a regenerative, renewable energy infrastructure.

Furthermore, important ecological and socio-political lessons were drawn from the comparison, highlighting the social and political advantages of an Energy Democracy. The ultimate aim of this paper has been to establish that the first stages of a revolution toward a British Energy Democracy are already in place. Within this scope, it suggests that the current political landscape in the UK can be used as an apparatus to propel the transition into a low-carbon built environment to the next stage.

Key Words The built environment, energy infrastructure, renewable energy, fossil -fuels, energy resources, extractivism, neo-extractivism, globalised neoliberal, Energy Democracy, Energiewende, environmentalism, ecologism, top-down decarbonisation, bottom-up decarbonisation, grassroots movements, political participatory action, United Kingdom, Germany, Naomi Klein, David Harvey 6

INTRODUCTION

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INTRODUCTION In the last few decades, the empirical reality of global warming has begun to take effect. In its wake, the need for the built environments’ energy infrastructures to urgently and rapidly decarbonise has never been more critical. As such, the background issue that is dealt with in this thesis is the potential of shifting energy resource consumption away from fossil fuel extractivism and toward renewable energy generation. This will be done within a political scope, empirically comparing the revolutionary potential of grassroot movements in communities between the United Kingdom and those in the beginning of Germany’s Energiewende. By using this empirical comparison as the primary methodology of research, this thesis’ intent is to highlight parallels between the two and, therefore, be able to identify the potential capacity of bottom-up, political participation in igniting a paradigm shift towards the decarbonisation of the UK’s built environment.

In the introduction, the lack of significant global action taken thus far to limit greenhouse gas emissions will be analysed. While the human population has been aware of the necessity to cut anthropomorphic GHG emissions since the 1970s and has had access to renewable technologies for decades, the politicoeconomic forces that are heavily complicate in this delay will be identified: namely, the contingency between globalised neoliberalism and neo-extractivism. This hegemony and process will only be dealt with briefly and in relation to energy infrastructures, as it is far too complex to be fully covered by this paper. Further-to-this, the paper will introduce the UK as a case study. The UK (baring Scotland) effectively exemplifies how neoliberal economies struggle to decarbonise their built environments through the mass-uptake of renewables via a traditional top-down, reformist approach. Moreover, when compared to many of its more socially democratic European counterparts, th e country’s mindset seems to be tied to its imperialist and extractivist history, particularly when it comes to resource accumulation. Lastly, its current political landscape may prove to be an interesting apparatus for launching a radical ecological change.

Following on from the Introduction, the first chapter will expand on the UK’s somewhat ineffective topdown environmental incentives and building efficiency/GHG emissions target backsliding. In order to understand the mentality behind this behaviour better, the paper will touch upon the nation’s political history since Thatcherism and explore how this has rendered its politico-economic institutions agendas to be at odds with urban decarbonisation. As such, in order to meet the Europe 2020, Europe 2050 and the Paris Agreement targets, the need to adopt a critical and revolutionary ecological mindset from the bottom-up has never been greater. Considering this, there has been a simultaneous and rich emergence of scattered grassroots movements that have been exhibiting and practicing this exactly, on a smaller community scale all over the country. While the bottom-up approach represents a modest portion of the kind of change needed, and is indeed a symptom of the political sphere’s failings in 7

INTRODUCTION

itself, this paper will investigate the potential of these forms of participatory action: they may just be the social driver that gives the ecological cause the impetus it needs. The time for empirical action is now and they are main actors who have been responding to this need.

Their potential will be achieved through a comparative methodology in the following chapter. The beginnings of Germany’s Energy Democracy presented similar grassroot social movements. As such, this section will explore the roots of the Energiewende, being mindful of the differences between the political landscape it developed in and that of current day UK. Some key principles of the Energiewende will then be discussed within an ecological and a socio-political framework respectively – acknowledging energy resources not only as a renewable right but also as part of the commons, to be respected, shared and used within its natural limits. These pockets of socio-ecological movements provide a glimpse into a more ecological and socially democratic future, via the spreading of localised and community-run energy infrastructures. This type of energy production, particularly in rural or suburban environments, hold the promise of a more stable, secure and democratic way of generating energy – one that does not contribute to global warming.

Energy Democracy highlights the strength of communal rather than individual action, giving social concerns, which are inherently linked to ecological concerns, momentum. By understanding how Germany developed its energy infrastructure from these movements, British communities and citizens might be able to harness its lessons and increase their influential capacity into tactile solutions. As such, the last section will explore Britain’s current political landscape and how it may be used as a apparatus to elevate these grassroots movements to the next stage.

1 .1 A CON TEX T F OR TH E RE S EA R CH 1 .1 .1

E STAB LIS HING THE NEE D F OR RAD ICA L CH ANGE

“Our economic system and our planetary system are now at war.” (Klein, 2015, p.21)

Governments and climate scientists have been keenly aware of the human population’s need – particularly within the Global North – to urgently cut greenhouse gas emissions since 1988 (Klein, 2015, p.18). In spite of this, the following decades not only witnessed a generally disillusioned or indifferent

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INTRODUCTION

global attitude 1 towards global warming, but are in fact liable for the largest carbon emissions in history.

In This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein (2015, p.11) offers preliminary research figures that suggest global CO 2 emissions were 61% higher in 2013 than in 1990 – just four years after the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference. The ever-increasing emission rates, amid the scientific community’s warnings of tipping point projections and cumulative CO 2 emission issues, have now alarmingly made meeting the 2°C temperature-rise target a very difficult task. Unless we are able to suddenly and radically change our carbon-fuelled way of life, 4-6°C warming is expected to be a more realistic trajectory.

This would result in a planetary environment that is ”incompatible with any reasonable characterization of an organized, equitable and civilized global community” ( Anderson, 2012, p.29).

We 2 are now a society of risk: the empirical implications of the complex system of theoretically projected tipping points and environmental knock-off effects are already starting to be felt in multiple areas around the globe.

The Global North’s lethargic response to global warming is in fact a highly complex, multi-faceted issue that transcends mere apathy. While the reasons for this uncritical mindset are too complex to be fully addressed in this paper, it is important to firstly state that it is partly fuelled by general ignorance at the individual level. This ignorance is perpetuated by the overarching hegemony that is also responsible for the lack of mitigatory action taken by intergovernmental institutions over the years: the politicoeconomic forces of globalised neoliberalism. This is supported by Andrew Biro (2011, p.6), who states that “adequately addressing the environmental crises we currently face will require us to rethink some of our fundamental sociopolitical institutions.” This paper will expand further upon the reasons why neoliberal ideals are at odds with the decarbonisation of energy infrastructures in greater detail in the following section. However, at this point, it is necessary to make clear that the undercurrents of neoliberalist policy have manifested themselves through the non-binding targets set by governments.

A notable example of this is the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen, which has systematically allowed sustained backsliding on commitments (Klein, 2015, p.11).

The issue we must, therefore, honestly face is that in order to avoid catastrophic warming, we must call the deregulated growth imperative at the heart of globalised neoliberal capitalism into question. Is it possible to achieve this solely through a top-down approach, when the majority of the key players in

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Since the 1980s, limited mitigatory measures have been taken by world leaders. Moreover, even though the science overwhelming agrees that global warming is a result of anthropomorphic activity, many civilians and politicians alike do not believe in human-induced warming.

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Communities in the low-lying Pacific Ocean islands, who have not contributed to the cumulative amount of GHG gases in the atmosphere, have already begun to suffer the extreme empirical implications of global warming.

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INTRODUCTION

the top tier of political institutions are embedded within this very politico-economic regime? History suggests not, as our historic failure to get to grips with decarbo nisation through “environmentalism, taken as a human-centred piecemeal reformist approach” (Stephens, 2016, p.59), fuels ecologism’s appeal for more “radical moral, political, and economic changes” (Stephens, 2016, p.59). As such, in order to collectively induce such revolutionary changes a social stimulus – or pressure – is needed to catalyse such a drastic change in our way of life and our way of interacting with the environment from the bottom-up. The need to shift from environmental perception to ecological action has never been greater and, therefore, the need to recognise and utilise the potential in empirical, ecological movements is paramount. This paper will investigate the potential of these ecological movements as a socio-political counterforce to a process that can be traced as a root cause of the environmental crisis: extractivism.

1 .1 .2

EX TRAC TIV IS M & THE B U I LT E NVI RO NME NT : M I NING FOR FO SS I L F UE L & UR A NIUM

Extractivism is a crucial underlying process that outdates capitalism itself, having begun in the beginning of the colonization era: it is the process of natural resource extraction from the planet (Lang & Mokrani, 2013, p.62). Since the 1970s, extractivism has evolved under global neoliberal growth into what is referred as neo-extractivism 3 – the process of selling natural resources to the global free-market as a commodity. As such, neo-extractivism is not only contingent on neoliberalism but acts as the foundation of materialist capitalism – that is, accumulation by dispossession. While the process has resulted in large economic gains, both globally and nationally, it has tremendous environmental consequences that often scar natural landscapes and result in resource de pletion4. Moreover, it is a force that has propelled and buttressed continued carbon emissions; it is the root driver that feeds growth outside natural limits, because the global market demands overprod uction to maximise capital gain. It is an economic-growth orientated development path (Acosta, 2013, p.66).

This leads onto another reason as to why extractivism is such a contentious issue. When analysed through a critically ecological lens, the degree of the human population’s right to take what is ‘needed’ from the environment for developmental purposes is being fundamentally called into question. Biro (2011, p.14) also emphasises that “nature is more than instrumental reason’s conception of it as a stockpile of resources, a certain humility or passivity is required ” when interacting with it. In other words, the extractivist process encapsulates our relationship with nature – we see ourselves as dominant over all its natural resources. This is the fundamental issue that urgently needs addressing: the way in

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Neo-extractivism considers the political and social dimensions of the pr ocess (Matthes & Crncic, 2012).

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There are also a number of social consequences, such as the human rights violations of indigenous peoples or locals .

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INTRODUCTION

which post-industrial countries sustain their carbon profligate way of life is through the unlimited and deregulated consumption of resources through extraction and accumulation from foreign countries.

While the scope of this paper is too limited to fully discuss this mammoth topic and all its politico economic implications in relation to neoliberal economies, it will aim to address them within the scope of energy production in urban environments.

It is well established that fossil fuels, as well as nuclear energy, have been the predominant fuel sources for built environments since the industrial revolution. Hydrocarbons and uranium are also natural resources that are drilled or mined from resource-rich and sold as a valuable commodity to the world free-market. Extractivism is therefore the root driver that fuels our carbon profligate lifestyles. As a result, it inherently dictates the way in which humans interact with and view energy sour ces: as a commodity and not as a renewable right and shared resource. Ideologies such as critical ecology challenge this by affirming the notion of “natural limits to economic growth” (Stephens, 2016, p.60), inherently renouncing the very heart of our politico-economic system: continuous economic growth based on resource extraction and accumulation. Understanding these opposing forces may present society with an opportunity to find a balanced solution to decarbonisation urban environments.

Lastly, decarbonising the built environment is an essential aspect of mitigating global warming because “the climate change problem is principally an energy problem” (Mackay, 2009, p. 16). Decarbonising energy-use in the built environment is crucial, since in Europe, for example, it constituted for approximately 40% (European Commission, 2010, p.185) of the EU’s total GHG emissions. Further-tothis, the UN (2011) has forecasted that this is on the rise; urban areas will be responsible for 73% of energy-use by 2030. Therefore, it is imperative that their energy infrastructures are decarbonised, particularly in light of the fact that it is relatively easier to accomplish in this sector than others, like industrial production. With this in mind, this thesis will use a case study to better develop and focus its argument.

1 .2 IN TRO DU CING TH E UNIT ED K INGD OM AS A CAS E S TUDY As previously mentioned, the UK (excluding Scotland) poses an interesting case study for this thesis because it exemplifies the Global North’s struggle with energy infrastructure decarbonisation, even though it is the second largest cumulative CO 2 emitter (Mackay, 2009, p. 14). It has experienced a number of lacklustre incentives on a political scale, chipping away at the hope that the top -down approach to decarbonisation will realistically make ecological concerns a priority. This has culminated in the slower up-take of centralised renewables in comparison to its Northern European counterparts (Eurostat Press Office, 2018). There has also been significant environmental legislative regression in

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INTRODUCTION

recent years, such as the scrapping of the Zero Carbon Homes Plan5 in 2015 (Oldfield, 2015) and the marginal improvements from the 2010 to the 2013 Part L Building Regulations ("Part L 2013 has finally arrived", 2013). Lastly, British shale gas companies ambitions to begin domestic fracking in 2018 (Vaughan, 2017a) are becoming a reality, amid the numerous protests from locals are environmentalists.

This, in addition to the fact that British decarbonisation plans actually include nuclear 6 (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.8), are significant signs that the country’s decarbonisation trajectory is still very much rooted in the extractivist mindset.

On the other hand, the country has a rich history of reactionary grassroot movements, such as a number of satellite, decentralised low-energy communities. Further-to-this, the past few years have witnessed significant organised protesting against the government’s plans for fracking and the shale gas companies. While these instances can be considered as a symptom of neoliberalism and its relationship with energy sourcing, they also represent strong socio-political participatory action from the bottom-up. Moreover, the UK may prove to be an interesting case study because of the recent resurgence of progressive ideals in the country’s political sphere - most notably in the opposition Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn and the Green Party - has created an interesting socio-political counterforce to the right-wing Conservative Party. Recent trends have shown an emerging correlation between the progressive left and environmental/ecological concerns. As such, this thesis will explore the possibility of the using the UK’s current political climate as an apparatus to for revolutionary change.

With this in mind, the following section will begin by briefly analysing the historical political development of the country since the 1970s.

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The policy was designed to significantly reduce CO 2 emissions from new UK dwellings from 2016. The latter represent a third of all the country’s GHG emissions. In 2050, this is expected to rise to 55% (Oldfield, 2015).

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Nuclear fission reactors require uranium, which is not a renewable resource.

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AN INVESTIGATION INT O THE UK’S STRUGGLE WITH DECARBONIS ATION The following chapter will elaborate on the development of Thatcherism – and subsequently, neoliberalism – in the UK and how it has hindered the mass-uptake of renewables; capital profiting clashes with the very idea of sustainable living. This is supported by Klein (2015, p.18), who explains that “we have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism”. Furthermore, this disparity seems to have been amplified under Conservative leadership in the past decade. As such, by establishing this inherent friction between politico-economic institutional interests and decarbonisation, the appeal for a revolutionary change in the country’s politico-economic sphere by adopting a more critical attitude to ecological preservation will be substantiated. This highlights an interesting paradox: that ecologism is actually a social movement in itself (Biro, 2011, p.5-6). Since top-down action is blockaded by neoliberal agendas, the most effective way of gaining ecological traction may be to recognise the capacity of political participation from communities; this kind of revolutionary change actually requires a strong social impetus 7 to encourage participatory democracy.

2 .1 TH E EN ERGY S ITU A TION TOD AY Before investigating the relationship between deregulated neoliberalism and mass renewable up -take, it may of use to first clarify what decarbonisation entails and provide a brief overview of the UK’s current energy generation mix. There are three aspects to the decarbonisation of the built environment’s energy infrastructure: firstly, the reduction of energy demands through fabric first approaches; secondly, fuelling building services with renewable energy; and lastly the management of these renewable infrastructures, be they localised or centralised. This thesis is primarily concerned with the second aspect of decarbonisation. In 2015, 29% of the UK’s total GHG emissions were generated from the country’s energy supply alone, making it the biggest GHG emitting division (Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, 2017a, p.5). Further-to-this, the residential sector, which includes fuel combustion for heating and cooking, was responsible for an additional 13% ( Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, 2017a, p.5). These figures reiterate the significance of the role of the built environment in reducing the country’s GHG emissions.

Historically, the UK has been dependent on coal, then gas and nuclear power (Mackay, 200 9, p.5).

However, renewable technologies are starting to pay a role in producing the country’s electrical energy, which is then fed into the grid. Figure 1 shows that in 2016, renewables contributed to 24.5% of the

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Most historical revolutionary changes began as grassroots social movements, such as gaining the female vote.

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country’s electrical generation, while fossil fuels still constituted half of electrical production alone (British space and domestic hot water heating is almost entirely fuelled using natural gas). In spite of this, the UK has committed to cutting 60% of its GHG emissions by 2050 (MacKay, 2009, p.14) and current data shows that it is not on track to meet the Europe 2020 target, which is the first stepping stone in the decarbonisation process. In fact, it is one of the furthest European countries from meeting the Europe 2020 renewable generation target; while Britain has committed to generating 15% of its gross final consumption from renewables by 2020, Figure 2 shows that it only managed 9.3% in 2016 (Eurostat Press Office, 2018). If the percentage rate continues to increase as it has done from 20 13 to 20168, there is a danger that the country will miss the target. Furthermore, Klein (2015, p.21) suggests that emission specialists agree that high-emitting countries in the Global North actually need to annually reduce their GHG emissions by around eight to ten percent in order to meet the global 2°C warming target.

Figure 1. Shares of electricity generation by fuel, left showing the year 2015 and right showing the year 2016 (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 2017b, p.117)

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5.7% in 2013, 7% in 2014, 8.5% in 2015 (Eurostat Press Office, 2018)

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Figure 2. Share of energy from renewable sources in the EU member states (Eurostat Press Office, 2018)

2 .2 TOP -DO WN D ECA RBO N ISA TIO N: PO L ITICO - ECO NOM IC B ARR I ERS TO R EN EW ABL ES Since the birth of Thatcherism in the late 1970s, the UK has been a leader in the application of neoliberal policy. In order to better understand the tensions that have resulted between the country’s politicoeconomic agenda and its decarbonisation, its key principles will be briefly set out. As David Harvey (2005, p.2) explains in A Brief History of Neoliberalism, the three fundamental elements of this politicoeconomic theory are the free market, free trade and privatisation of the public sphere. Neoliberalism argued that the restriction of the state’s role to simply provide a “institutional framework” (Harvey, 2005, p.2) would liberate citizens to shape their lives as they saw fit. It is important to note that this way of thinking emphasised the importance of the individual’s ‘rights’ or pursuits rather than those of a collective. “Under the liberationist banner” (Klein, 2015, p.39), Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan managed to establish the Western World’s market fundamentalism within a decade, which would then evolve into globalised neoliberalism. In Environmental Political Theory and the Liberal Tradition, Piers Stephens (2016, p.59) highlights that environmental ethics and its application to the political sphere has heretofore struggled between “reformism, usually anthropocentric , and radicalism, usually nonanthropocentric”. The former has been the status-quo approach for the past few decades, since it creates less tension with neoliberal ideals than the alternative. Moreover, the environmentalist movement proclaimed that “the problem [could] be solved by the market itself” (Klein, 2015, p.20),

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making it an attractive solution: it meant that we could continue living our lives as we normally do.

However, these valuable decades, which are now spent, proved otherwise; it is impossibl e to make the “square peg of climate crisis fit into the round hole of deregulated capitalism” (Klein, 2015, p.20). In This Changes Everything, Klein highlights examples of how free trade and the World Trade Organization have accused “green energy programs” (Klein, 2015, p.64-65) and new local renewable industries of being protectionist. This goes against free trade and, as a result, such companies often face closure – even though we are in the middle of a climate crisis.

More specifically to Thatcherism and energy production, the privatisation of energy companies like British Gas in 1986, alongside continued deregulation, suddenly created a reality where a select amount of people stood to make huge profits from hydrocarbon extraction. In 2016, Iain Conn – the chief executive of British Gas’ parent company – got an annual pay rise of £4.15 million (Vaughan, 2017b).

Even though Thatcher then proposed that this would empower citizens and improve service efficiency, the reality that has become clear to us now is that the small amount of citizen shareholders, in comparison to the large foreign investors, actually have no sway over the companies that “generate and distribute power in Britain” (Coman, 2013). Privatisation disempowered the people.

A second tier of issues arose after the 2008 financial crash, when the promise of neoliberalism collapsed and civil unrest manifested itself in a number of social movements that began to pop up everywhere.

The UK’s response to the financial crisis, under the then Conservative Prime Minster David Cameron, was to take severe austerity measures, which later increased under Theresa May’s leadership. Yet these measures often seemed to hit the lowest earning tier of British society the hardest, a pattern that is becoming typical of neoliberal economies (Oxfam, 2013). This is an overarching observation, one that deals with a complex mesh of factors, however fuel poverty provides a tangible example of this in the energy sector. Fuel poverty has been a significant issue in Britain for decades, however it is estimated that in 2008 approximately 4 million households could not afford to heat their homes in winter, more than double of what it had been in 2003 (Mearns, 2014). Part of the reason for this sharp increase was the country’s ill-advised energy policy, which exasperated the already high international fuel costs (Mearns, 2014). Post-crash, energy company prices rose significantly, dropped slightly the following year but have been increasing ever since (Mearns, 2014). That same year witnessed the Copenhagen Climate Agreement and, in 2010, the EU pledged to reduce its GHG emissions by 20% in comparison to the year 1990. A few years on, plans to make homes more energy efficient and, therefore, less dependent on fuel were scrapped and the issue of the UK’s ‘energy gap’ was partially answered with ecologically damaging fracking. Why would the government support this rather than push for more energy efficient homes, so that households could be less dependent on fuel in the first place?

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Moreover, why not investment towards increasing renewables shares in the grid, when shale gas is a fossil fuel and can, therefore, only be a temporary solution (technically) based on the Europe 2020 and 2050 targets? The public’s general disillusion then resulted in the Brexit referendum, a historical event that represented the working class’ protest vote 9. If the UK’s (baring Scotland) has already had such an unenthusiastic approach towards decarbonisation thus far, what will happen once it leaves the EU? It is interesting to note that almost immediately after Theresa May was elected Prime Minister in 2016 after the Brexit referendum, one of her first acts was to remove the Department for Energy and Climate Change. All environmental responsibility was transferred to the new Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (Johnston, 2016). This example is just an illustration of the post-crash consequences of further economic disparity and ecological depletion.

With this in mind, it is plausible to suggest that the UK’s governing mindset is still rooted in the imperialism – one of neocolonial resource plunder. This, coupled with its neoliberal politico-economic incentives, strongly suggest a link between the people calling the shots and those that stand to lose a lot by embracing large scale decarbonisation. A notable example of this was the 2013 BHP Billiton – a fossil fuel mining conglomerate – six million pound funding scandal to UCL’s Institute of Sustainable Resources, which resulted in Jane Rendell’s resignation as vice-dean of the university (Carrington, 2014).

In what capacity would a fossil fuel mining giant be the founding funder of an institution that is, so to speak, batting for the other team? Furthermore, is it also possible to speculate that large shale gas mining companies like Cuadrilla and Third Energy, who of course stand to make large profits for fracking, have some influence within the political sphere? Even though Britain is considered to be one of the best geographical areas in Europe for wind power generation, it still miles behind Sweden and Denmark in renewable energy generation (see Figure 2). At this stage, it is also fair to highlight that work on decarbonisation has already begun: the London Array is the biggest offshore wind farm in Europe. However, the array is predominantly owned by foreign companies; it is plausible to assume that Britain’s ‘Big Six’ energy suppliers would not be very eager to invest in large renewable schemes on their own soil because they would then be competing with themselves. Craig Morris and Arne Jungjohann (2016, p.11) provide further insight on this, by stating the following:

“The lesson here should be clear: utilities often build renewables in new are as in order to enter new markets. Germany’s Eon is behind […] the world’s largest offshore wind farm, the 630 MW London Array. Yet, the firm had only 213 MW of wind power capacity

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This was a highly symptomatic result of the financial crisis and a significant socio -political event. While Brexit is not seen by many as a positive thing, it still represents political rebellion against the establishment for the working class’ dissatisfaction.

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installed in all of Germany—its home market—at the end of 2014. […] Utilities are admittedly building giant wind and solar projects everywhere, but largely in competitors territory, not their own. And they see community projects built by citizens as a threat within their own turf. Corporate utilities don’t want their own investmen ts in renewables competing with their existing conventional energy assets, and they don’t want yours either.”

On the grand scheme of things, all this points to the continuous scattering of neoliberalism’s promise, which has slowly been washed down over the years and has lost clarity of its initial motivations: one of a better life for the average, individual person. Furthermore, it supports the argument that the vested financial interests of the big earners – like the ‘Big Six’ energy companies or the shale gas companies – surpass the needs of the nation’s social and environmental sphere. Indeed, Theresa May is aware of the monopoly that the ‘Big Six’ have over the energy sector and has stated that “the vast majority of consumers, especially those with the lowest incomes, are on the most expensive tariffs” (Asthana & Vaughan, 2017). In essence, the top-down approach has not done enough to decarbonise because it does not have the country’s socio-ecological interests at heart: the hope that “environmentalism, taken as a human-centred piecemeal reformist approach” (Stephens, 2016, p.59) can succeed in effectively reduce anthropogenic GHG emissions is now exhausted. This is why the bottom-up approach, which grassroot movements represent, are so important. Even though separately they are modest forms of actions, together they have the potential to create a social impetus that puts pressure on institutions to act because, when left to their own devices, they do not.

2 .3 B OTTOM - UP D ECARB ON ISA TION : TH E P OW ER OF SO CIO - ECOLOG ICAL G RASSR OO TS M OV EM ENTS Thankfully, the UK has a rich history of reactionary socio-political participation to draw upon and ecological movements are no exception. Whether in the form of organised protesting against fracking in England or communities taking it upon themselves to set up decentralised, low-carbon schemes, citizens’ responses to institutional inaction are materialising. To reiterate, while these separated instances are symptoms of the neoliberalist hegemony they exist in, they may also provide a positive glimpse into the future of a more democratic and decarbonised life. The following paragraphs will provide some compelling examples of different forms of participatory action.

The Findhorn Foundations’ Ecovillage Project is perhaps one of the oldest eco-community movements in the country. Having begun in the 1980s in Scotland, the project was exemplary and influential in the development of this kind of movement globally ("About the Findhorn Foundation", 2018), generating

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AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE UK’S STRUGGLE TO DECARBONISE THUS FAR

its own electricity using three wind turbines. The Lancaster Cohousing scheme is another example of a successful decentralised, low-carbon and ecologically aware community. Their homes were built to Passivhaus standards, meet the Code for Sustainable Homes and utilise localised renewable technologies ("Lancaster Cohousing: Home Page", 2018). More and more of these communities have been popping up all over the country over the years, with another Passivhaus standard cohousing project that generate their own electricity through renewables – Cannock Mill Cohousing Colchester – being finalised this year. It is interesting to note that there seems to be a correlation between Britain’s ecological communities and cohousing schemes; that is, they share resources and choose to live in a cooperative fashion to minimise their ecological impact. Another notion to consider is that the people who live in these communities tend to be the project clients, board members and the developers of the projects; they take it upon themselves to make things happen. This represents the staunch commitment that these people have to changing their lifestyles because a significant amount of participatory action and effort is required to deliver and maintain such projects. They encapsulate the strength of communal action by succeeding in changing their way of life. Whether they realise it or not, they renounced a lifestyle that was sustained on extractivist foundations: a process that is the driver and is, in turn, driven by the global markets. As such, they challenge the fundamental ideology of unfettered progress and growth, at exceeds natural limits, that resides at the heart of their society’s politico-economic regime. Another powerful message that they send is their ability to govern their own commons: they are microcosms of collective and critically-minded societies that have developed a regenerative relationship with their surroundings environments.

The Centre for Alternate Technology in Machynlleth, Wales is a pioneering eco-centre in alternative energy technologies. It was founded in 1973 by a community of people who believed in t he power of ecological thinking. They wanted to test and prove that alternative renewable technologies are a viable solution for energy generation. This community eventually grew into one of “Europe’s leading ecocentres” (Alonso, 2018) and, today, boasts one of the largest and most diverse range of installed renewable technologies. The centre goes one step further by not only living, but also educating individuals on, regenerative lifestyles – they offer accredited postgraduate degrees, including a masters in Sustainable Architecture. This type of institution is a unique example of the potential growth and impact that a single community of people can have, a collective that mains to generate change through empirical actions and education.

As aforementioned, the financial crash was a double-edged sword. While it created huge economic turmoil, it also created political instability – especially when the average citizen learned that they would be bailing out the banks with their tax money. It cracked political and financial institutions’ disillusioning armour. Within the scope of the extractivist argument, the student-led divestment campaign that began

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AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE UK’S STRUGGLE TO DECARBONISE THUS FAR

pressuring investors to dump their fossil fuel stocks may or may not be a direct reaction to the crash, however, it forms part of a wave of socio-political aftershock responses. The movement spread to the UK when Glasgow university became the first of many British universities to divest from the industry (Brooks, 2014). The movement gained further momentum when protests against UK banks began, having had funded around £66 billion for hydrocarbon extraction (Carrington, 2014). The campaign is reaping it fruits; the Independent (2018) reported that banking mammoth HSBC, alongside the World Bank, ING and BNP Paribas, would stop financially backing the fossil fuel industry. This demonstrates how a grassroots campaign can gain enough traction to make big changes.

Alongside this, the past decade has witnessed a significant amount of protesting against hydraulic fracking, which is due to begin this year. While the government and fracking companies, like Cuadrilla, argue that shale gas would act as the bridging fuel needed to close the energy gap 10 while the country decarbonises, there are a large number of ecological concerns associated with the practice. More poignantly, the fundamental question as to why the country is going to invest in more fossil fuels when it should be investing in renewable technologies is still evasively unclear. The renewable technology is there, so why is shale gas needed as a bridging fuel? The argument that renewables are unreliable and require back up on days with low wind or sun has merit, however, the country still has its existing, domestic gas production and nuclear plants. This has been met with a large array of protests over the last decade. Even though public support is low (Evans, 2018), plans are steaming ahead; in 2016, British authorities even voided the Lancashire County Council’s decision to fracking ban. In response, local residents and environmentalists filed a lawsuit that was ultimately rejected (Sputnik International, 2017).

The Further-to-this, shale gas companies have been blocking protests through injunctions, an act that has been accused of being “anti-democratic and draconian” (Evans, 2018). However, this has not dampened campaigners spirits and the organised protesters managed to raise £40,000 (Evans, 2018) in retaliation for legal proceedings.

These instances, where citizen’s voices are being ignored over the ambitions of corporate ventures, emphasis the UK’s issues with participatory democracy. Scattered, all these movements and protests may just remain symptomatic instances in the history of a failing system. Famous British anti-nuclear protests, like the nonviolent direct action taken against Torness Nuclear Power Station in 1978-9, live on in memory has impressive displays of citizen spirit alone because, unfortunately, they did not win.

If they could have somehow been properly harnessed and backed with alternative, economically viable proposals, they could have sparked the beginning of a revolutionary ideological change that may have

10

This has been a concern since Britain closed a number of its coal power station s.

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AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE UK’S STRUGGLE TO DECARBONISE THUS FAR

founded a new socio-ecological movement, one that renounced the instrumental rationality that has been damaging the planetary conditions our civilisations are fundamentally dependent on. This has already happened before after all, when Germany’s Rhine Valley wine growers and farmers showed resistance against the building of nuclear plants in 1970s.

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3

LEARNING FROM GERMAN Y’S ENERGIEWENDE

“Energy democracy, n. […] 1) when citizens and communities can make their own energy, even when it hurts energy corporations financially; 2) something currently mainly pursued in Denmark and Germany but that can spread around the world during the current window of opportunity; 3) the most often overlooked benefit of distrusted renewables in the fight against climate change; 4) something to fight for as the path to better quality of life with stronger communities and better personal relationships.” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016)

This chapter will use an empirical comparative methodology to explore parallels between the political participatory action taken in Germany in the 1970s, which sparked the Energiewende, and the aforementioned movements occurring in the UK today. The last chapter analysed the rich spectrum of Britain grassroots movements that could be mobilised into a radical socio-ecological revolution. The beginnings of Germany’s Energiewende exhibit interesting similarities with these forms of participatory action, particularly the fracking protests. By understanding Energy Democracy as a new kind of ecological economic framework, which resulted from socio-political stimuli, important lessons and values can be drawn from this historical event. This could illuminate an opportunity for the UK, one that could be seized upon to begin a radical change. The following section will therefore provide a brief, historical overview of the Energiewende’s roots.

3 .1 TH E B EG INN ING: A GR A SSR OO TS MOV EM EN T In Energy Democracy: Germany's Energiewende to Renewables, Craig Morris and Arne Jungjohann explain how the German public got their governing institutions to succumb to citizens’ demands through policy change (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.xi). The Energiewende began through a grassroots movement – protests not dissimilar to the ones currently occurring in Britain. Credit is also given to the “numerous state and local governments [who] also passed ambitious legislation and set up Energy Agencies” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.xi). The latter did not only buttress communities by helping them to install renewable technologies – in this case, wind turbines - but also to do so efficiently (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.xi). Therefore, the poignant question to ask is: how did the German public get their political representatives to listen to them and be responsive, even when it went against the vested interests of energy companies?

While the beginnings of the Energiewende cannot be traced to a one particular moment, many suggest that it began with the 1970s protests of the Rhine Valley’s wine growers and farmers. Notably, the 22

LEARNING FROM GERMANY’S ENERGIEWENDE

protest in Wyhl in 1975 was the first citizen-led action that stopped a nuclear plant from ever being built. However, in 1971, the citizens of the small town of Breisach laid the first foundation stones of the movement. The state government of Baden-Württemberg announced that it was going to build a nuclear power plant close by to the town, one of four that were planned to be built in the region that decade. The farmers and wine growers were in opposition to the industrialisation plans because they were concerned that it would negatively affect the ‘loess’ soil 11 that their grape vines and orchards thrive off. Furthermore, they had strong worries that the vapours from the plant would alter the climatic conditions of the area. So, when plans for the plant were announced, these locals organised a parade and “collected a whopping 65,000 signatures” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.18). In response, the state governor moved the plant location to Wyhl. Just as is happening in the UK today against companies like Cuadrilla and Third Energy, “locals fought against big business coming to town, changing the local surroundings, and reaping most of the profits while the community ran the risks” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.4).

In 1973, it was revealed that the plant would be built in the village and the mayor had neglected to inform his citizens prior to the announcement. Locals were annoyed that their political representatives were not acting on behalf of their constituents and were trying to turn their “rural communities into industrial landscapes” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.18). Fuelled by the success of the Marckolsheim 12 protest, they pushed against the mayors and the economics minister efforts to get th e plant built.

Moreover, they were unconvinced by the pro-nuclear propaganda that the government’s ‘expert’ advisors provided at public awareness meetings, because they had already begun to engage with their own scientific experts. So, even though a referendum that was held ended up ruling against them, the protestors did anything that was legally possible to block the permit. When push came to shove and the first bulldozers arrived on site, “180 opponents spent the night for the first time in what wo uld become a nine-month occupation of the site” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.24). This was initially responded with instances of police brutality. Shocked at how the peaceful protestors were being treated, the public began to view the entire affair as a question of democratic rights and not about whether the plant should be constructed or not. This ended up creating enough stress to turn the tides: the protestors ended up winning because they organised information meetings, held lectures to make the risks of radioactivity clear and generally created social impetus. They challenged their own ignorance and took it upon themselves to educate themselves. The case eventually ended up in court for a number of years, fought out by “legal experts and engineers” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.30),

11

A particular type of soil that exists on the bed of volcanic rock of the area ( Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.17).

12

A French protest across the Rhine, that Germans were also involved in, that succeeded in stopping a lead processing plant from being built (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.17).

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LEARNING FROM GERMANY’S ENERGIEWENDE

delaying the project long enough for the 1979 Three Mile Island accident to occur. This cast further doubt among the public, so even though the court eventually ruled in favour of the project, protestors just poured out on site again. The governor decided to respect the people’s wishes and showed no interest in helping the utility company from clearing the site. In 1994, after years of limbo, the project was cancelled. Wyhl was just the beginning and many other protests sprang up simultaneously in other areas, some of which lost. The story is too long to fully explain but the lesson to be taken from Wyhl i s that it was a grassroots protests that ended up spurring and encapsulating the struggle against nuclear for the decades to come.

“German historians believe that Wyhl and other protests of that decade “turned former subjects into active citizens.” […] The German public no longer accepts expert opinions at face value, but they also understand that they must educate themselves if they want to object. As Austrian Christine Lins, head of global renewables organization REN21, put it, the result is a uniquely informed public” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.34-35).

3 .2 EN ERGY DEM OCRA CY: A N EW IN TERA CTION W ITH EN ERG Y R ESOURCES 3 .2.1

F UE L AS A RE NE WA B LE RIG HT

The fruits of these average citizens is Germany’s Energy Democracy, an infrastructure which demonstrates that publicly-owned decentralised, renewable technologies do not only reduce GHG emissions but also have the potential to be economically viable 13 and socially enriching. It suggests that accepting big utility companies to take full decarbonisation responsibility – when history has proven that this is not the case – can no longer be accepted as the status quo. In Germany, the utility company’s typical business model is being inextricably challenged, with a reduction of their shares in the energy market “as citizens and new players start making their own energy” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.8).

Morris & Jungjohann (2016, p.8) provide empowering figures which demonstrate that almost 50% of the financial investments in the renewable market were made my “citizens and energy co -ops” by 2012.

The

four largest energy companies only formed 5.5% 14 (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.8). A

revolutionary message that the Energy Democracy contains is that energy is no longer a commodity – that it is no longer a product of extractivist practices. German citizens do not rely on big corporations buying unlimited natural resources from the free-market, without any ecological concern or regulation,

13

The system is becoming increasing costly because the country is effectively running two energy infrastructures at once due to renewable storage issues, and has to run large amounts of power cables to transfer energy from the north to the south.

14

“Institutional investors such as banks, insurance companies, and municipal energy suppliers made up” ( Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.8) the rest.

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LEARNING FROM GERMANY’S ENERGIEWENDE

to sell to them in the form of energy – a basic need for any citizen - for a profit. Energy is a renewable right that every German citizen has the ability to exercise. Ripples of this have already begun the UK, with the emergence of “publicly owned companies [that are] taking on the big six energy suppliers” (Vaughan, 2017c).

3 .2.2

A N ECO LOG ICA L ECONO M Y

Another important message that is embedded in the Energiewende is that a country – even an industrialised one like Germany’s – can transition to a fully renewable energy infrastructure (that will eventually exclude nuclear power) without severely compromising its economic growth. As previously mentioned, this paper has sought out to understand the currently opposing forces of economic growth and ecological preservation, in order to find a balanced solution to the decarbonisation of the urban environment. The Energiewende achieves this. It allows citizens to generate their own renewable energy, by managing localised systems themselves, and to do so profitably by selling excess electrical energy back to the grid. This can all be accomplished with ecological concerns in mind. The UK’s rich collection of low-carbon communities and its Centre for Alterative Technology already provide a domestic platform of knowledge for this. The additional potential of the Energiewende is that it is a unique example of the “large-scale transition [needed to] give us a collective chance of averting” (Klein, 2015, p. 16) global warming. This statement does not aim to diminish the importance of the modest grassroots movements; on the contrary, it seeks to illustrate what these scattered and isolated instances of socio-ecological thinking and participation can grow into. They are an essential tool in gaining public interest and generating growth of ecological populist ideals.

3 .3 EN ERGY DEM OCRA CY: A SO CIO -POL ITICA L LESS ON Before highlighting some important socio-political lessons that the UK can take from the Energiewende, it is appropriate to reiterate that the political contexts of the countries differ. Germany has a long history of participatory democracy, one which is more representative and encouraging of citizens’ direct involvement. The UK, as has already been eluded to, is a somewhat different political animal. Its lingering imperialist mindset, coupled with the strong neoliberal drivers of its economy, have resulted in the watering down of citizen participation over the last few decades. Indeed, “in 2013 the British government did not seem to realize that citizens can build their own renewable energy projects; it merely welcomed their input when they said no to utility wind farms” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.10).

The aim, then, is to utilise these grassroots movements to generate a strong enough populist movement that will pressurise politicians to actually listen. Moreover, Germany did not have a reference to work with when it came to shaping policies. Britain does.

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3 .3.1

LEA RNI NG FR OM THE E N ERG IEWENDE’ S M I STA KE S

It is important to look at the Energiewende holistically, after all it “is the mother of all megapr ojects” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.9) and it would be naïve to expect the whole process to be smooth sailing. German citizens are paying higher prices for per kWh used than the politicians who eventually backed the project promised. The UK can learn from Germany’s mistake here: the magnitude of this kind of energy transition is a mammoth task and unprecedented in human history. Every experiment or new innovation takes unexpected turns and meets unforeseen obstacles. It is a political trap to promise an infallible plan, when it is impossible to deliver one. Every innovation has multiple iterations and we cannot except renewable transitioning to be any different. It would also do well to remember that we have become accustomed to cheap energy. Indeed, the process of burning oil, gas and coal is easy compared to electrical energy generation from renewable technologies. A possible silver lining to higher energy prices is that it might make people more aware, and even respectful, about the amount of energy they use.

And while the Energiewende is still in development, its hoped success will demonstrate that a nuclear free and carbon-free energy infrastructure is possible. The same could be true for UK; however, the way in which they wean themselves off nuclear could be executed more effectively in order to avoid the storage and shortage issues the Germans have been experiencing with their renewable electricity grid. Germany are the pioneers and are, therefore, going to encounter multiple problems with their transition. The UK has the advantage of precedent. Notwithstanding, Germany – an industrial nation by comparison to its European counterparts - is on track to meet its 2020 carbon-cutting targets: by 2050 the government aims to produce “at least 80 percent renewable electricity [and] at least 60 percent renewables in final energy” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.2). This is a promising prospect.

3 .3.2

S EIZE THE M O MENT

The first bit of important advice that Morris and Jungjohann provide in their book should be heeded : that the rare and “brief windows of opportunity” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.13-14) to make a transition from fossil-fuels and nuclear to renewables should be seized. Citizens, political activists, ecological activists and entrepreneurs alike need to rally together and take the necessary steps to light a fire under the grassroot movements’ embers. Local communities who are affected by extractivist interests, like those in the proposed fracking areas in England, are only the beginning of the struggle.

As the Energiewende reached national levels and began to encompass different public sectors, “the general public realized that protests alone were not enough; citizens would have to start coming up with solutions—because the experts had financial incentives not to find them.” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.36). Just as the Wyhl protestors did not just stop there and began to educate themselves on nuclear, and then alternative energy generation, locals in fracking regions can strive to do the same.

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Innovative, ecologically-minded communities like the Centre for Alternative Technology have already been doing this for decades in Wales – their experience and expertise is invaluable. Knowledge is the antidot to ignorance and the ideological contagion that spurs radical change.

Further-to-this, a country’s transition to renewables is actually a unique window of opportunity to democratize its energy industry. Eventually, renewable technologies will be an economic competitor to nuclear and fossil fuels; the markets will catch up and encourage the transition. If possible, communities should act quickly enough to start investing in their own decentralised, renewable plants before the big energy companies do and commoditise it. If, at least, a small portion of the industry is communityowned and run, it will create more competition in the markets. It could disband the sector’s small group monopoly of large suppliers by introducing a number of smaller community-run, council-run or cooperative-run 15 schemes.

3 .3.3

THE PO WE R OF THE C OM M UNI TY VS THE I ND IV I D UA L

Another important concept to solidify is that the Energiewende promotes collectivism. Morris & Jungjohann (2016, p.10) make an interesting point in stating that the British 16 decarbonisation debate heavily orientates around the efforts of the individual, rather than focusing on what communities can accomplish. This emphasis on the community is exceptionally important because it intensifies the public’s voice, provides a platform for the formation of energy cooperatives and creates a body of resistance to governmental institutions and large utility companies. Mitigating carbon emissions on an individual level is much more daunting and difficult task. Germany’s 1970s protests encapsulate the strength of “community empowerment” (Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.xiii) through the implementation of renewable technology. Germany did not just put a national policy plan into action to whine themselves off nuclear and fossil fuels; the citizen population is in fact responsible for the transition, a phenomenon that Morris and Jungjohann (2016, p.x) point out has been impossible in the UK so far.

Rallying all the discussed grassroots movements together could change that.

3 .3.4

E NERG Y A S A C OM MONS NOT A P RI VA TE VENTU R E

All of these socio-political aspects of Energy Democracy – decentralised, community-run infrastructures – resonate with the ideals of commons governance. Sohn et al. (2015) highlights that “new social and political spaces of self-governance, empowerment and self-determination can be opened according to local circumstances and needs.” Based on evidence provided in the paper so far, it would not be an

15

This is a particular area that the UK has plenty of experience with, having boasted a number of housing cooperatives in its history.

16

“Note that Scotland is an exception; it has begun promoting community renewables” ( Morris & Jungjohann, 2016, p.10).

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overstatement to claim that decarbonisation is one of the greatest needs of today’s societies.

Furthermore, the concept of understanding “the commons not only as a resource but also a process and a practice” (Sohn et al., 2015) is equally important: Energy Democracy is a socially practiced experiment that needs combined action and knowledge to succeed. Through this practice, it has the ability to bring communities together, while simultaneously reinforcing the circular and regenerative relationship possible between human communities and their ecological surroundings. If a community is responsible for its commons, it will better understand how it works , how to interact with it and how to get the best out of it without damaging it. As Walter Benjamin (1978) famously said, “technology is not the mastery of nature but of the relation between nature and man”.

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FROM EXTRACTIVISM TO ENERGY DEMOCRACY

4

FROM EXTRACTIVISM TO ENER GY DEMOCRACY What is important to draw from the Introduction and the previous two chapters is that the UK needs a revolution, not a reformation, if it is going to go down in history books as a country that contributed to the mitigation of global warming. In order to move away from the extractivist mindset, there needs to be an ideological shift, which as observed is already happening all over the country. When these socio-ecological movements manifest in political participatory action, they can become a catalyst for a paradigm shift. In order to successfully decarbonise the country’s energy infrastructures, the UK can draw upon the wealth of knowledge provided by Germany’s Energiewende – an ongoing empirical experiment for a new ecological economy framework. Its benefits are twofold: firstly, successful decarbonisation that is critical towards ecological protection; and secondly, a more democratic energy sector and way of life.

4 .1 TH E P ROM IS E OF A BRI TISH EN ERG Y D EMO CR AC Y The scope of this paper does not include an investigation into the systematic application of Energy Democracy in the UK; this would require far more than a thesis paper. The transition from grassroots movements, to policy shaping and, finally, to delivery within the British politico-economic context is highly complex. Even though the UK can learn from the Energiewende, it cannot and should not just copy it. A British transition has to be based on the British context. Nonetheless, the last two chapters endeavoured to provide a compelling comparison to prove that the first stage, the grassroots movements, are indeed happening right now. Furthermore, history has proven that it is conceivable to imagine that they can bare revolutionary fruit. This is the promise of these pockets of small-scale action.

Lastly, it holds important messages that should not be undervalued: that of participation and community involvement, ideals that challenge the country’s politico-economic regime.

In this regard, it is safe to say that the British people have a long history of bottom-up participatory action within the politico-economic sphere. Even though, as previously mentioned, the political climate of the country has progressively discouraged direct citizen participation – as the country transitioned from a social democracy into neoliberal capitalism – their impressive co-operative movement, which ranges over a number of different societal and industry sectors, suggests that they know how to rally together to provide fairer services and deliver them effectively. This experience of cooperation is an incredibly valuable asset and skill that can be transferred to the built environment’s energy sector.

Indeed, a co-operative energy supplier already exists – The Co-operative Energy. It sources all of its electrical energy from renewables ("Good with energy", 2018), many of which are already community owned ("What is User Chooser?", 2018). The kindling is all there and so is the spark. Now, the fire needs to be lit and kept from going out.

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FROM EXTRACTIVISM TO ENERGY DEMOCRACY

4 .2 TH E S YMB IO TIC P O TEN T IAL B ETW EEN TH E PR OG R ESS IV E L EF T AND EN E RG Y DEMO CRA CY The country’s current political climate is also worth addressing. Firstly, the progressive left has been running out of steam throughout the globe and the UK in no different. The ever-increasingly popularity of fundamentalism in right-wing politics seems to be gaining traction, particularly in the UK with the ever-increasingly right-wing Conservative Party and UKIP. This is because their rhetoric resonates with the disillusion many people are feeling in their social or economic circumstance s 17.

In the Introduction, the Conservative party’s lacklustre approach to decarbonisation was established. Moreover, recent trends have shown an emerging correlation between the progressive left and the ecological agenda – green parties’ liberal ideals tend to sit to the left of the political spectrum. Both are more morally guided by social concerns over economic growth. Although it could be argued that ecologism is not anthropocentric, saving the planet from global warming is indeed what is best for society. To reiterate Biro (2011, p.5-6), the campaign to save the environment is a social movement. The interesting notion to consider is that the progressive argument in British politics has been somewhat reignited, with Jeremy Corbyn being elected as the leader of the Opposition Labour Party and the steadily increasing exposure of the Green party, particularly in cities like Brighton and Bristol. This has created a modest counterforce, which has mostly been backed by the youth of the country, to the ever-increasingly right-wing Conservatives. As such, it is possible to see this circumstance as an apparatus for the socio-ecological paradigm shift that has been advocated thus far.

The relationship between the latter and the progressive left might in fact be symbiotic: could a profoundly critical ecologist mindset toward climate change present the progressive left with a chance to revitalise its place in 21 st century politics? If the left was dominated by the socialist, labour and class argument in the 20 th century, could ecologism be what it hinges on now? Klein (2015, p.9-10) speculates on the fact that, in the first half of the century, progressives showed initiative in creating successful paradigm shifts through the implementation of extensive political schemes 18. Indeed, “there is a rich populist history of winning big victories for social and economic justice in the midst of large-scale crises” (Klein, 2015, p.9-10). If the progressives of contemporary Britain could harvest the socio-

17

This is an ironic paradox of the past decade because the right’s austerity measures, particularly after the crash, are direct ly related to these circumstances (Oxfam, 2013). Manipulation of the media and the use of political scapegoats are use d as tactical diversions.

18

This is exemplified by the “the birth of countless social programs after World War II” (Klein, 2015, p.9-10) and, specifically to Britain’s case, the Welfare State.

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FROM EXTRACTIVISM TO ENERGY DEMOCRACY

ecological impetuous that decarbonisation holds, and the expansion it could witness, there may be a chance for the grassroots movements to have a political partner in the next stage towards an Energy Democracy. If comprehensive plans for policies that encouraged energy co-operatives or communities to build localised renewables schemes within the commons were developed, borrowing from the wealth of knowledge small-scale communities and projects already possess, then the more democratic and socially stable future that the left strives for would be plausible. The shift from exploitative, extractivist processes toward a regenerative, Energy Democracy would be within reach.

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CONCLUSION

5

CONCLUSION The background issue that has been dealt with in this thesis surrounds the decarbonisation of the built environment’s energy infrastructures. In order to mitigate GHG emissions from tipping the global average temperature rise above 2°C, an ecological revolution within the built environment is needed.

With this in mind, the paper first establishes why the top-down approach to decarbonisation in many countries within the Global North – such as the UK – has met such resistance over the past decades: this is due to its reigning politico-economic hegemony of globalised neoliberalism and neoextractivism.

As such, the foreground issues discussed in these chapters have focused on the embedded potential of symptomatic grassroots movements. These come in various forms, such as small-scale, political participatory action or the building of decentralised, low-carbon communities. The environmental crisis is also a social crisis, so how can this be harnessed to fuel an ecological revolution? While these smallscale movements represent a modest portion of the decarbonisation jigsaw puzzle, they are also symptomatic of the politico-economic regime they exist in. They are a reactionary and challenging force to the hegemony of neo-extractivist interests, which are at odds with decarbonisation. To reiterate, understanding these opposing forces may present society with an opportunity to find a balanced solution to decarbonisation urban environments.

Focusing on the UK as a case study, the paper has empirically compared different forms of sociopolitical participation with those exhibited in the beginning of Germany’s Energiewende in the 1970s in Chapters two and three respectively. This has been done within a limited scope; the paper does not wish to describe the ins and outs of the Energiewende system. Rather, it has strived to illustrate that grassroots movements hold an unlocked potential. Decentralised, low-carbon communities provide a glimpse into an ecological and economically viable future. The political momentum that is embedded within the anti-fracking campaigns are a spark that could ignite the beginning of a transition into that aforementioned future. The message that Germany’s Energy Democracy holds is this: it can be done because that is precisely how the Energiewende began in the Rhine Valley all those decades ago.

Thus, the challenge in decarbonisation is not an issue of technological advancement but the politics of human power (Klein, 2015, p.25). The strength of decarbonisation is that it holds the promise of a more democratic and ecological future. This is what makes the German Energiewende notable: it is not necessarily the transition from nuclear energy to renewables – to be sure, other countries like Sweden generate more renewable energy – but the shift from monopolised energy infrastructures to an Energy Democracy. If the UK learns from the Energiewende and harnesses the political potential of human power in an effective way, then populist momentum could materialise into a momentous opportunity 32

CONCLUSION

to “advance policies that dramatically improve lives, close the gap between rich and poor, create huge numbers of jobs, and reinvigorate our democracy from the groun d up […] It can disperse power into the hands of the many […] and radically expand the commons, rather than auctioning it off in pieces” (Klein, 2015, p.10).

The final chapter of the thesis speculates on the UK’s current political landscape . Since recent years have shown a correlation between the progressive left and ecological concerns, a symbiotic relationship could exist to further both agendas. Responding to global warming with a critical attitude toward the socio-ecological sphere may present the progressive left with a chance to revitalise its place in 21 st century politics. If socio-ecological movements and political participatory action are a stimulus for revolution in the country’s energy infrastructures, then the country’s current political situation could be the apparatus for achieving an Energy Democracy. By viewing Germany’s Energiewende as framework for a new ecological economy, the UK’s decarbonisation would not only have ecological benefits but would also result in a more socially fair and democratic society.

In view all of this, the closing message of this paper is that rural communities, suburbs, cities – indeed, any form of architecture – are uniquely placed in the climate crisis because they do not only hold the potential to minimise GHG emissions. Architecture carries cultural messages: in the wake of global warming, it possesses an inherent ability to communicate that humans were able to create a new ecological and more democratic civilisation. If the grassroots movements that the UK is experiencing largely surround issues concerning the built environment, and manifest themselves in alternative kinds of communities, then it is fitting that the latter leads the way forward to a better future.

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