DISARMAMENT:
DISABLE ALL WEAPONS
Carbon neutrality by 2030 in Portugal
To stop the climate crisis within the deadlines dictated by science and based on global justice, Portugal must cut its emissions by 85-90% and achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.
The droughts, heat waves, storms, floods, forest fires and food crises that we are currently experiencing are due to 1.2ºC of global warming, caused by carbon dioxide emissions from fifty years ago.
Based on current scientific data, all the infrastructures that emit CO2 are equivalent to factories of weapons of mass destruction. For every day in operation, they launch missiles into the air, reaching the world's poor (and beyond) in the near future. While we are already losing entire cities due to the climate crisis, we will soon witness the collapse of entire countries: a collapse that results not from a natural event, but rather from a deliberate act of destruction.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s report says that we must achieve carbon neutrality before 2050, globally. (Carbon neutrality means that carbon emissions equal carbon sinks, corresponding to a cut of at least 85 to 90% of emissions.) However, the most realistic calculations suggest this objective will only be achieved at the beginning of the 2040s.
If we want to reach carbon neutrality in 2050, then in 2049 there must be few countries emitting, and those should be countries in the Global South, who hold near to no responsibility for the climate crisis. Therefore, all industrialized and semi-industrialized countries must achieve carbon neutrality by 2040, so that there is room to maneuver for those with fewer economic resources and less historical responsibility. Between 2030 and 2040, semi-industrialized countries (e.g. China, Turkey, Brazil) must decarbonize. Countries in the Global North, responsible for most emissions and also for the social and economic destruction of colonized countries, must achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. And to this goal we must add the support that countries in the Global South must receive.
There are many fantasies regarding the possibility of capturing emissions, and companies' current responses are based on non-existent or untested technologies, with the clear intention of continuing to legitimize the use of fossil fuels. Basically, what cuts emissions is cutting emissions, and that's what we have to do. In practice, we will have to cut emissions in Portugal by 85-90% by 2030. The Climate Jobs campaign report shows how this can be achieved by creating 200 to 300 thousand decent, socially useful jobs.
To achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, we need decarbonization plans, for each emitting sector, compatible with this goal. We need to completely decarbonize energy, transport and building sectors; cut emissions from industrial processes and waste by more than half; and transform agricultural and forestry areas into carbon sequestration zones. Some sectors have to decarbonize sooner than others. Below, we explore how this transition might happen in each sector.
Recommended Readings:
Carbon Budget Calculator - https://carbonbudgetcalculator.com/
O relatório da campanha Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/relatorio/
Aspirando à neutralidade carbónica até 2030 em Portugal – Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/aspirando-a-neutralidade-carbonica-ate-2030-em-portugal/
The Big Bad Fix: The case against geoengineering – ETC Group - https://etcgroup.org/content/big-bad-fix
100% renewable and affordable electricity by 2025 in Portugal
Cessation of electricity production using natural gas, still responsible for around 30% to 40% of electricity consumed in Portugal.
Each month that passes without the implementation of a just transition plan implies a more abrupt transition. In order to stop the climate crisis, that is, to stop the increase in fires, heat waves, floods and lack of access to water, it is necessary to decarbonize all sectors of the economy, starting with those that are easiest to decarbonize. To achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, we need 100% renewable electricity by 2025.
This means that this has to be the last winter of gas: that we have to stop generating electricity from fossil gas as soon as possible.
Electricity 100% produced through renewable energy is cheaper and may even be free. The peace and energy sovereignty plan that stops the climate crisis, and that allows us to get out of the crisis of rising costs of living, is 100% renewable electricity and accessible to all families by 2025.
The implementation of this measure involves:
- garantir a estabilidade e inércia da rede através de mais interligações e da energia hídrica.
- close the four fossil gas electricity production plants;
- invest in energy efficiency and energy sufficiency to reduce energy consumption;
- adapt the electrical grid and install smart grids;
- increase the installed capacity for renewable energy production, with an energy mix of wind, photovoltaic, geothermal, hydro, solar concentration and ocean;
The Jobs for Climate campaign report estimates that a just transition in the energy sector will create 60 to 100 thousand jobs to completely decarbonize the sector.
Recommended Readings:
O relatório da campanha Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/relatorio/
Last Winter of Gas - https://www.lastwinterofgas.org/
O relatório “Empoderar o Futuro” da campanha Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/relatorio-empoderar-o-futuro-da-campanha-empregos-para-o-clima-mostra-como-construir-um-servico-publico-de-energias-renovaveis/
Descarbonizar o sistema energético em Portugal, criando milhares de empregos – Manuel Araújo - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/descarbonizar-o-sistema-energetico-em-portugal-criando-milhares-de-empregos-manuel-araujo/
Eletricidade 100% renovável até 2025 – Manuel Araújo e Leonor Canadas - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/eletricidade-100-renovavel-ate-2025-manuel-araujo-e-leonor-canadas/
Creation of a public, renewable and free public transport service
Creation of a service that implements a national plan to meet people’s needs. This has the railway as its main body, surrounded by public, collective and electric road transport, complemented by lighter options such as bicycles and walking trips.
The transport sector is responsible for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in Portugal: 28% of national emissions. We must end all these emissions by 2030.
There are 5.5 million cars in Portugal, of which 930 thousand are between 4 and 10 years old, and 3.4 million are even older. In other words, if we stopped selling combustion cars today, in 2030 we would still have 4 million combustion cars because that is the turnover rate in Portugal. So to truly cut emissions, the incremental approach of replacing cars with electric cars doesn't make sense. The only way compatible with decarbonization by 2030 is to make the use of individual cars unnecessary.
Mobility with zero CO2 emissions means free, electric, comprehensive, integrated and quality public transport, which implies public investment and decent and socially useful employment.
The lack of accessible and quality public transport in Portugal is an economic and social incentive for the automotive and oil sectors. We need to stop being complicit in climate destruction.
An ambitious and rapid investment plan is needed that includes:
- expansion of national and international railway networks;
- creation of a public company dedicated to the development of a national electrified road public transport network, combining electric buses and shared mobility;
- massive expansion of metropolitan railway networks;
- expansion and consolidation of the cycling network, along with permanently car-free areas.
The Climate Jobs campaign report predicts the creation of between 60 and 100 thousand direct jobs to decarbonize the transport sector.
O relatório da campanha Empregos para o Clima prevê a criação de entre 60 e 100 mil empregos diretos para descarbonizar o setor dos transportes.
Recommended Readings:
O relatório da campanha Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/relatorio/
Um sector de transportes em Portugal com zero emissões – Sinan Eden - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/um-sector-de-transportes-em-portugal-com-zero-emissoes-sinan-eden/
The Road Less Travelled: Reclaiming Public Transport for Climate-Ready Mobility – Trade Unions for Energy Democracy working paper - https://www.tuedglobal.org/working-papers/the-road-less-travelled
Mais ferrovia – 10 medidas para vencer em 4 anos, Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/por-onde-comecar/3-mais-ferrovia/
Rodoviária eléctrica nacional – 10 medidas para vencer em 4 anos, Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/por-onde-comecar/4-rodoviaria-electrica-nacional/
Mobilidade urbana ferroviária – 10 medidas para vencer em 4 anos, Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/por-onde-comecar/5-mobilidade-urbana-ferroviaria/
Emprego digno numa economia descarbonizada: mobilidade partilhada – Sinan Eden - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/emprego-digno-numa-economia-descarbonizada-mobilidade-partilhada-sinan-eden/
Virtually zero aviation by 2030
Aviation is the fastest and most unfair way to burn the planet and has seen rapid growth in recent years, with no signs of slowing down. More than 80% of the world's population has never boarded a plane; and half of aviation emissions (which corresponded to 5.9% of total emissions in 2018) were caused by frequent flyers, who represent just 1% of the world's population.
One of the biggest problems facing the aviation industry is the current lack of technological solutions that allow air traffic to be emission-free: electrifying aviation is not a viable option in the coming decades and substitutes for fossil kerosene, such as biofuels and synthetic fuels (“e-fuels”), cannot be produced in the necessary quantity without harmful consequences. This is why reducing aviation emissions requires a significant reduction in flight volume.
Aviation must be operated within the limits of countries' and global emissions budgets. Flights must be prioritized according to need, such as for humanitarian emergencies or when there is no alternative method of transport.
In concrete terms, this means not only that there can be no new airports but that existing airports need a rapid phased closure plan.
Recommended Readings:
Stay Grounded - https://stay-grounded.org/
Degrowth of Aviation – Stay Grounded - https://stay-grounded.org/report-degrowth-of-aviation/
The Illusion of Green Flying – Stay Grounded - https://stay-grounded.org/green-flying-report/
Um sector de transportes em Portugal com zero emissões – Sinan Eden - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/um-sector-de-transportes-em-portugal-com-zero-emissoes-sinan-eden/
Transform Industry to low carbon by 2030
Whether through the use of fossil fuels for furnaces or through chemical processes – as is the case with cement and steel – factories continue to emit CO2. However, almost all sectors could produce what they are producing without causing emissions: They do not do so because it is financially disadvantageous to carry out an industrial transformation towards decarbonization. In other words, what companies don’t want to pay for, we pay with our lives via heat waves, floods, droughts, infrastructure failures and social conflicts.
They know they are killing us, they know they could continue their business without killing us, and yet they continue to kill us.
Industry causes 15 Mt of the 67 Mt emissions in Portugal (2018 data).
Half of these emissions come from energy production (production of heat or electricity by direct combustion in the factory). A good part of this value can be dispensed with for energy efficiency; the rest is to electrify. In almost all industrial applications, alternative, commercially viable technologies that enable electrification already exist. Perhaps in the cement and steel sectors there are still some technical difficulties due to the high temperatures that have to be reached; which is why we can immediately use biogas and biomass from municipal waste and agroecology.
Another half comes from industrial processes: emissions that result from the occurrence of certain chemical processes (that is, emissions that do not derive from the combustion process) to manufacture cement or some chemical industry products. There are different ways of doing the same things, without causing these emissions: it is possible to build houses with very little cement, it is possible to produce steel using hydrogen, it is possible to use alternative materials, it is possible to rethink what we are producing and for what purpose.
For a climate disarmament plan, we will have to rethink the industry so that our economy is not suicidal. The Jobs for Climate campaign report predicts the creation of 5,000 to 20,000 decent jobs to cut industry emissions to a quarter of their current value by 2030.
Recommended Readings:
O relatório Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/relatorio/
Energy sufficiency
Energy sufficiency means managing the production of goods and services with a focus on what is really needed by society, excluding all unnecessary expenses, for example, energy expenditure on advertising and marketing or fast fashion.
At a time of transition when we are faced with several energy challenges, we must prioritize real needs and make collective choices about energy use.
Energy sufficiency goes beyond energy efficiency. For example, buying a car that consumes less gasoline is an example of energy efficiency, while introducing public transport to reduce the use of individual transport is an energy sufficiency policy.
The energy system must, therefore, be designed based on social and ecological criteria for the use of electricity, which, in addition to ensuring the satisfaction of people's real needs, minimize the need to extract resources and disrupt ecosystems.
The key measures for an intervention of this nature are:
- location of production, reducing energy transmission and product transportation;
- stop unnecessary use of energy such as energy spent on: advertising; in the financial system; in the production of unnecessary objects or at a rate far above essential consumption, as is the case with fast fashion; in maintaining large commercial databases;
- stop destructive energy consumption, such as wars and military operations;
- investment in collective public transport and shared mobility systems, which make the use of individual vehicles unnecessary; and
- introduction of better agricultural practices that depend on less external inputs.
Recommended Readings:
Energy sufficiency: towards a more sustainable and fair society – Association negáWatt - https://negawatt.org/IMG/pdf/181029_energy-sufficiency_negawatt-scenario_eng.pdf
Circular economy and waste reduction
Waste emits 4.6 Mt CO2, the majority of which comes from municipal and industrial waste. This is almost 7% of total emissions and represents half of methane emissions.
We need to stop producing waste. To achieve this, we must begin by stopping planned obsolescence and disposable consumption, investing in repair and reuse. The economy and production must be based on people’s true needs.
There is a consensus on the fact that we have to consume less, this reduction must begin by stopping the planned obsolescence embedded in objects. However, measures of this kind generally arise in a context of ecological austerity that supports individual sacrifices that are practically impossible in the current production system. To reduce total energy consumption, it is necessary to rationalize production and focus on long cycles of use for all products, particularly those that consume more energy intensively. This means having household appliances with lifetime warranties and upgradable and repairable electronic devices.
At this time, these options don't even exist. When they exist, it is almost always cheaper and easier to buy a new device rather than trying to replace a part. Companies know how to produce resistant products, but they don't do it because it doesn't generate profit. We need strong regulation against planned obsolescence and we need to remember or reinvent the fix-and-fix culture. This will also contribute to reducing imports, improving the trade balance and reducing emissions associated with maritime transport.
Improve waste management starting by:
- avoid waste from production, reducing packaging and finding new (and perhaps also very old) forms of production with greater durability;
- invest in repair and reuse, through circular economy concepts and policies;
- close organic circles via composting;
- invest in recycling only for industrial products.
- Existing landfills and waste scattered in oceans, forests and roads require recycling and mechanical treatment. Only as a last resort, and only for existing waste, should we consider the so-called energy recovery, which involves incineration and energy production via biogas. But, in this case, the existing capacity, built assuming that there would always be more and more waste, is already sufficient, and there is no need to create new infrastructure.
The Jobs for Climate campaign report estimates the creation of 10 to 15 thousand jobs in the circular economy to cut emissions by approximately 60% by 2030.
Recommended Readings:
O relatório Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/relatorio/
Empregos para o Clima na Economia Circular – Ana Matias e Renata Fleck - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/empregos-para-o-clima-na-economia-circular-ana-matias-e-renata-fleck/
Análise do potencial de criação de empregos para o clima no setor dos Resíduos Urbanos – Paulo Ferrão & Fernanda Margarido - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/analise-do-potencial-de-criacao-de-empregos-para-o-clima-no-setor-dos-residuos-urbanos-paulo-ferrao-fernanda-margarido/
Coisas feitas para durar – Empregos para o Clima - http://empregos-clima.climaximo.pt/por-onde-comecar/7-coisas-feitas-para-durar/
Regenerative agroecology
We must implement Regenerative Agroecology systems that aim to:
1) Drastically reduce emissions from the agricultural sector, and increase carbon sequestration in agricultural soils and permanent plant biomass;
2) Increase the efficiency of resource use (nutrients, light, water, energy, etc.), prioritizing the use of local resources and clean energy;
3) Increase the resilience of agroecosystems and food systems to shocks and extreme events;
4) Create decent jobs in the sector, such as improving current working conditions.
Agriculture and livestock are responsible for 13% of emissions in Portugal. Emissions from the agricultural sector are counted separately from those from forests, because capitalism looks at soils as material to be extracted and, when the material changes, the accounting sector also changes. We need a more integrated approach to land and territories.
A climate disarmament plan will have to include a strong Regenerative Agroecology component that includes:
- Invest in bio-diverse agroecological and agroforestry systems, which seek to optimize the use of natural resources and apply ecological principles in their design and management through the diversification of species and cultures in space, time and landscape;
- Eliminate the use of inorganic fertilizers, synthetic pesticides and other external inputs;
- Reintroduce the use of legumes in rotations;
- Eliminate the use of agricultural monocultures in intensive regimes;
- Drastically reduce the livestock sector, adopt systems that enable effective management of livestock effluents, expand ruminant and granivorous livestock production and re-territorialize livestock systems in agricultural areas, integrating animals into agroecological and agroforestry agroecosystems;
- Redistribute natural pastures throughout the territory and develop agroecological infrastructures to cover 10% of the cultivated area;
- Invest in urban agroecology to bring producers closer to consumers, reduce food waste, increase the use of domestic waste and reduce the use of chemical production factors (which ensure that products withstand long journeys);
- Invest in research, experimentation and demonstration appropriate to specific contexts, accompanied by inspection and training, as well as structures that support and bring together local producers.
- Invest in human and material resources that ensure inspection and continuous training of professionals to guarantee food safety and protect populations (e.g. protect against the presence of anabolic substances in meat production; parasites in soil, food and water for human consumption; pesticides, antibiotics and resistance genes to these, among others);
- Creation of structures that support and bring together local producers.
The Climate Jobs campaign estimates that 30,000 to 45,000 new jobs in agriculture could cut the sector's emissions by 40% by 2030.
Recommended Readings:
O relatório Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/relatorio/
Adaptação e Mitigação das Alterações Climáticas: Um Sistema Alimentar e Setor Agropecuário Agroecológicos em Portugal – Leonor Canadas e Miguel Encarnação - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/adaptacao-e-mitigacao-das-alteracoes-climaticas-um-sistema-alimentar-e-setor-agropecuario-agroecologicos-em-portugal-leonor-canadas-e-miguel-encarnacao/
Zero-emission food system
Food at this moment is the most visible way for fossil capitalism to build complicity with us in planetary destruction. By dominating production and distribution, companies control the options available and their prices. They destroy ecosystems and communities in production and distribution, and make us complicit in consumption.
If our goal is to save lives (rather than the collapse of civilization), it is possible to build a zero-emissions food system through public canteens, composting and reducing animal products.
Currently, the food industry only focuses on the grams of food placed on supermarket shelves. This ignores soils, ecosystems, communities, the well-being of the workers and animals involved, and the survival of civilization as we know it. We need a radically different approach to food, one that leads us to rethink our relationship with non-human nature.
It will be necessary to implement a set of complex measures in a coordinated manner:
- Reduce food waste, and increase the reuse and composting of domestic organic waste (at home and through differentiated collection of organic waste).
- End imports of food products (processed or unprocessed) from countries where their production has intense social, climate and environmental impacts. Also end the transport of live animals.
- Prohibition of bottom trawling and other industrial and destructive fishing gear;
- Drastically reduce the consumption and production of animal products and increase the presence of vegetable proteins, fruits and vegetables in diets, prioritizing local and seasonal products, and increasing proximity between producers and consumers.
- Adopt healthier and more balanced diets in accordance with nutritional recommendations.
- Implement an extensive network of vegan public canteens, with nutritionists, and which prioritize the use of local, seasonal and organic products.
- Implement one day a week of vegan food in all public canteens, monitored by nutritionists.
- Furthermore, there must be a decommodification of all seeds and an end to all genetic patents.
Recommended Readings:
O relatório Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/relatorio/
Adaptação e Mitigação das Alterações Climáticas: Um Sistema Alimentar e Setor Agropecuário Agroecológicos em Portugal – Leonor Canadas e Miguel Encarnação - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/adaptacao-e-mitigacao-das-alteracoes-climaticas-um-sistema-alimentar-e-setor-agropecuario-agroecologicos-em-portugal-leonor-canadas-e-miguel-encarnacao/
Dia Sem Carne – Empregos para o Clima - http://empregos-clima.pt/por-onde-comecar/8-dia-sem-carne/
Proteína Verde - https://proteinaverde.pt/
Justiça Alimentar Já! - Climáximo - https://arquivo.climaximo.pt/2020/11/02/justica-alimentar-ja/
Fire fighting and prevention
The increase in temperature leads to more and more fires, which release even more CO2 into the atmosphere, further fueling the climate crisis. Therefore, in order to protect people and reduce the burning of forests and forest plantations, we must start by:
- i) Create a national forestry registry;
- ii) Value and reinforce forest guards and nature watchers;
iii) Value and reinforce professional firefighting.
Carrying out a forest registry: We need fewer ignitions and a smaller burned area. This means having a total forest registry for the national territory, and what is abandoned must be taken over by the State. Abandoned areas must be managed, not by current cachectic structures, but by an institution created for this purpose that values small landowners and rural, agricultural and forestry diversification. The species that should be in each territory are known and also the climate forecasts for these same territories in the future, so the articulation of this information should guide the planning of the territory from now on, prohibiting production forests in areas especially suitable for conservation, and favoring species that are useful for the territory and populations in the future, with a view to preserving soil and water and, whenever desirable, enhancing their multiple use.
Value and strengthen forest rangers and nature watchers: Valuing Nature Watchers by ensuring the daily presence of these professionals, 365 days a year, with the necessary resources to protect our forests, forests and marine prairies.
Value and reinforce professional firefighting: Hire professional Firefighters paid by the State, investing in the resources necessary for the management and preservation of forest resources in Portugal and the survival of local populations
The report from the Jobs for the Climate campaign estimates that between 16,000 and 21,000 new jobs are needed in the forest.
Recommended Readings:
O relatório Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/relatorio/
Floresta: Como torná-la num verdadeiro sumidouro e armazém de carbono – João Camargo - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/floresta-como-torna-la-num-verdadeiro-sumidouro-e-armazem-de-carbono-joao-camargo-ics/
Todos os caminhos da neutralidade carbónica passam pela floresta – Luís Fazendeiro - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/todos-os-caminhos-da-neutralidade-carbonica-passam-pela-floresta-luis-fazendeiro/
Florestas: mais emissões ou mais emprego? – Paulo Pimenta de Castro - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/florestas-mais-emissoes-ou-mais-emprego-paulo-pimenta-de-castro/
Urgência climática e Urgência na valorização dos Vigilantes da Natureza – Carla Luís, Sílvia Acabado, Francisco Correia - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/urgencia-climatica-e-urgencia-na-valorizacao-dos-vigilantes-da-natureza-carla-luis-silvia-acabado-francisco-correia/
Defender a Floresta – Empregos para o Clima - http://empregos-clima.pt/por-onde-comecar/10-defender-floresta/
Public housing
An investment plan for public housing to ensure energy-independent and energy-efficient homes for all people.
The situation is simple in Portugal:
1) Residential and commercial buildings are responsible for 7% of emissions.
2) Portugal is the fifth country in the European Union most at risk of energy poverty.
In other words: we are freezing to death, and when we try not to die, we are being forced to contribute to our collective death.
There are 730 thousand empty houses in the country, there are 2 million people in poverty. No new housing is required, which is associated with high emissions (in particular, due to cement); Yes, public housing and building rehabilitation are necessary.
Each of us who finds ourselves in a precarious housing situation is simultaneously suffering the impacts of the climate crisis (for example, during heat waves or storms) and being part of the problem – by spending excessive energy to heating the house without thermal insulation, due to a lack of affordable options. Every building that has low energy efficiency is a financial incentive for energy companies: every euro on our heating or electricity bills that can be cut through energy autonomy or energy efficiency measures must be cut. (Energy autonomy of a building means that the building produces a good portion of the energy it needs. Energy efficiency in a building includes thermal insulation and architectural structures that provide heating and cooling without consuming energy.)
The only way to reverse the situation and reduce building emissions is an ambitious commitment to quality public, social and cooperative housing that does not involve endless new construction.
For this, a minimum start would be:
- make all abandoned buildings public, converting them into public housing;
- guarantee housing for everyone;
- define ambitious standards of autonomy and energy efficiency in homes accompanied by public support;
- planning the territory with the participation of the people who live there, outlining community solutions that ensure that social reproduction is shared equitably and uses resources efficiently, as well as that there is easy and quick access to public transport.
Recommended Readings:
Habita - https://habita.info/
Plataforma Casa para Viver - https://www.casaparaviver.pt/
Casa Quente – ZERO - https://casaquente.zero.ong/
Autonomy and energy efficiency in buildings
To overcome energy poverty in Portugal and guarantee homes resistant to heat waves – without increasing emissions linked to air conditioning –, it is necessary to invest in the autonomy and energy efficiency of buildings (e.g.: insulation of houses), giving priority to public buildings.
To reduce emissions linked to buildings, it is also necessary to recover the building stock and establish regulations for works and new construction.
Autonomy and energy efficiency: It is necessary, on the one hand, to equip buildings with heating systems powered by renewable energy sources and, on the other, to improve the passive energy efficiency of buildings - improving the insulation of the roof, walls, facades and of the glazing. Public buildings such as schools, hospitals and central and municipal administration buildings consume energy (electricity and heating) because they produce services for society. Its transformation is a priority; with efficient thermal insulation and the application of solar panels, these buildings can become self-sufficient.
Recover the building stock and establish regulations for works and new construction: taking advantage of abandoned buildings reduces the need to build new houses, which has a direct impact on emissions, for example, through the production of cement. In works on existing houses and for new constructions, it is necessary to establish a high level of regulation to reduce the use of cement and steel, incorporate photovoltaic panels, invest in buildings with energy autonomy, and increase green spaces around buildings, as well such as on roofs, walls and interiors.
The Jobs for the Climate campaign report estimates that around 35,000 new decent jobs are needed to rehabilitate buildings in order to reduce the need for energy consumption by 40%.
Recommended Readings:
O relatório Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/relatorio/
Potenciais empregos gerados pela reabilitação energética – Manuel Duarte Pinheiro - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/empregos-reabilitacao-energetica-manuel-duarte-pinheiro/
Casa Quente – ZERO - https://casaquente.zero.ong/
Creating Climate Jobs and a Public Renewable Energy Service
To implement the necessary transformations in the necessary time, it is essential to create thousands of new public jobs in key sectors for the transition – Jobs for the Climate – and a Public Renewable Energy Service that coordinates the management of all electricity production in Portugal guaranteed the beginning of a just transition.
Currently, no energy transition is happening because the guiding principle of energy policies is profit. We are going through a process that we can call “energy expansion”: a simultaneous increase in investment and projects in fossil, renewable and pseudo-renewable energies. If decades of experimentation with market mechanisms accompanied by rising emissions have taught us anything, it is this: only a coordinated public policy plan, anchored in climate and social justice, can build a fair and rapid transition.
The climate justice movement in Portugal has produced two proposals to implement this roadmap which, to date, are the only proposals compatible with climate deadlines.
Climate Jobs are new jobs, created in the public sector, from a public service perspective, in key sectors for the transition (such as energy, transport, industry, construction, agriculture, and forestry management), and which have a direct impact on the cut of greenhouse gas emissions. They give priority to employment for workers in polluting sectors through professional retraining. The report “Climate Jobs” (2021), produced by a collective work of academics, trade unionists and environmentalists, argues that 200-300 thousand new jobs will be needed in key sectors of the economy, mainly in the areas of renewable energy, transport, construction, agriculture and forestry.
O movimento pela justiça climática em Portugal produziu duas propostas para concretizar este roteiro que, até ao momento, são as únicas propostas compatíveis com os prazos climáticos.
Public Renewable Energy Service is a service that generates all electricity production in Portugal, through exclusively renewable sources, starting in 2025, which guarantees a fair transition and ensures universal access to renewable energy. For the Public Renewable Energy Service to meet its objectives, it will have to:
(i) control the electrical sector and the various stages that electrical energy goes through: production, transportation, distribution and commercialization
(ii) hold EDP, REN and the concessions for remaining dams in Portuguese territory.
These proposals have existed for years and are being developed in collective and open processes, with public presentations and public debates, with dissemination in the media and social and political organizations. When they say that the climate justice movement has no proposals, they are lying to you, because they have something to gain from that lie.
Recommended Readings:
O relatório da campanha Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/relatorio/
O relatório “Empoderar o Futuro” da campanha Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/relatorio-empoderar-o-futuro-da-campanha-empregos-para-o-clima-mostra-como-construir-um-servico-publico-de-energias-renovaveis/
Transição energética ou Expansão energética? - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy and Transnational Institute - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/novo-relatorio-transicao-energetica-ou-expansao-energetica/
Purposeful, decent and democratically managed employment for all people
Everyone must be actively involved in stopping the climate crisis. Everyone has the right to useful and dignified work. Unnecessary jobs to halt the climate crisis and build social peace must be replaced with Climate Jobs and jobs in basic service sectors. All jobs need to guarantee work rights, including the rights to vacation, decent pay and fair working hours – with a phased reduction to 32 hours a week. The workspace must be democratic, with the active participation of everyone in decisions regarding their working conditions.
Increasingly, we feel that our jobs are useless.
The main reason for this is our awareness that many products or services would not exist in a non-suicidal economy. In other words, they serve no purpose other than profit and planetary destruction. Our complicity in climate breakdown leaves us feeling depressed and powerless.
A complementary reason is the commercialization of all social and personal spaces, transforming everything into transaction spaces: when having dinner with the family, for example, we receive a call from someone who wants to sell us television packages; This means that one of us, at dinner time with the family, is making calls to sell television packages. This probably means that both people described here, at that moment, hate that job.
And yet, in a context of complete alienation of the product and working conditions, companies pretend to create “empowerment” at work. This is sometimes soft, like weekly team meetings where we can't decide anything that matters; other times it is much more brutal, as is the case with delivery app algorithms that “flexify” schedules for supposed “self-employed” people who cannot decide on either the schedule or the service – in fact, they don’t even have access to the company’s app code that defines their working conditions.
In short, climate collapse is not an event, it is an integral part of a society that makes no sense. Governments and corporations have declared war on people and the planet, and this war is waged by us against us.
But it doesn't have to be like this... We have to stop and discuss why we work, who we work for and how we work.
Climate disarmament will take a lot of work. Peacebuilding too. The Jobs for Climate campaign report estimates that 220,000 to 300,000 decent jobs could cut Portugal's emissions by 85% by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality.
Recommended Readings:
O relatório Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/relatorio/
Trinta e duas horas semanais – Empregos para o Clima - http://empregos-clima.pt/por-onde-comecar/9-trinta-e-duas-horas-semanais/
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory – David Graeber - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
Income justice to serve the climate - the 1% pay
Corporations, the ultra-rich and their political representatives know that they are destroying the physical and chemical conditions of civilization as we know it and they know that they are profiting from it.
The richest 1% have twice the wealth of the rest 99% of the population. At the same time, the same 1% are responsible for emissions equivalent to two thirds of the world's population. In the European Union, the richest 1% emit as much as the poorest 50%. If oil companies and the ultra-rich have profited from climate breakdown so far, then they must be the ones to pay the costs of the just transition.
This must include:
- Maximum Income Limit: IRS rate of 99% from 150,000 euros per year. Individual Income Tax (IRS) covers not only income from work, which is how the tax affects most people, but also capital income, such as dividends from companies, real estate income, capital gains from the sale of financial assets, among others. This tax works on a step-by-step basis. When a person's income reaches a certain value, income above that value enters a new bracket and is taxed at a higher percentage, but income below that value is taxed at the percentages corresponding to the previous brackets. It is necessary to establish a new maximum IRS bracket, applied to income exceeding 150,000 euros gross per year, with taxation set at 99%.
- Professional training in Climate Jobs that starts now, paid for by companies, and that covers all company workers.
- Full salary until new employment for all workers whose jobs are eliminated by the transition.
- Control of prices of essential goods and services.
- End tax havens, to which 500 billion dollars per year are lost, globally.
Recommended Readings:
Richest 1% bag nearly twice as much wealth as the rest of the world put together over the past two years - Survival of the Richest – Oxfam International - https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-bag-nearly-twice-much-wealth-rest-world-put-together-over-past-two-years
Richest 1% emit as much planet-heating pollution as two-thirds of humanity – Oxfam International - https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-emit-much-planet-heating-pollution-two-thirds-humanity
EU’s richest 10% emit as much planet-heating emissions as half the EU’s poorest population – Oxfam International - https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/eus-richest-10-emit-much-planet-heating-emissions-half-eus-poorest-population
Limite Máximo ao Rendimento – Climáximo - https://arquivo.climaximo.pt/2020/09/21/reivindicacoes-de-emergencia-anti-corpos/
Por uma Transição Justa em Sines – Empregos para o Clima - https://www.empregos-clima.pt/estudo-sines/
Tax Justice Network - https://taxjustice.net
Make Polluters Pay - https://www.polluterpay.org/
Getting out of trade treaties
Repudiate unfair trade treaties such as CETA and the EU-Mercosur agreement under negotiation, which exclusively serve the interests of multinationals against people and the environment. Reject participation in anti-democratic mechanisms such as ISDS to resolve trade disputes.
Portugal is bound by various dispute settlement systems and international trade agreements that tie up the chances of breaking away from fossil fuels. Through these, the big multinationals - including those that profit from fossil fuels - can fight policies that jeopardize their destructive interests. Breaking out of these is essential if we are to pursue the policies we need to fight the war against us and build peace.
Divestment from the security forces and military industry, investing in social services.
Disinvestment in security forces and the military industry, allocating it to the care sector, social services and a national climate service.
Disinvesting in security forces and the military industry - used to subjugate and impose colonialist and racist forms of oppression and exploitation, and also responsible for a considerable share of emissions - and investing in the creation of a "national climate service" to manage the energy transition and in zero-emission jobs in the care and nature protection sector.
Retraining security and military industry workers in dignified and useful jobs for society.
Dismantling Fossil Colonialism
When the colonialist armies and bureaucrats left the countries of the Global South, their companies stayed (in many cases, the bureaucrats also stayed, now as shareholders in those companies). The companies stayed to continue the extractivist economic model and the flow of resources from the Global South to the Global North. The first steps to dismantling fossil colonialism are to:
I) expelling Galp from the Global South;
ii) ending imports of fossil fuels from the Global South;
iii) canceling the Global South’s debt.
Galp outside the Global South: Galp's gas exploration consortium in Mozambique in the north, near the border with Tanzania, is involved in a militarization of the area by state and private forces that are expelling local communities from coastal areas to build infrastructure to support offshore operations. The Mozambican army and security companies from Russia, South Africa and the USA are active in the Cabo Delgado region and hundreds of families have already been expelled to ensure security for the projects. Galp must leave Mozambique immediately, as well as Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe and Namibia.
End the import of fossil fuels from the Global South: Stop importing fossil fuels from other countries, particularly from the global south, breaking with the current fossil colonialism that prevents the transition to renewable, clean, decentralized and profitable energy in these communities.
Canceling the debt of the Global South: The countries of the Global North have emitted much more CO2 than those of the South. The impacts of the climate crisis we are currently seeing are due to the emissions resulting from industrial acceleration after the Second World War. At the same time, colonialism deindustrialized the countries of the Global South and actively reduced their capacities for resilience, adaptation and transition (which continues with neocolonialism and extractivist projects). This is called ecological debt. On the other hand, the Global South is in financial debt to the countries of the Global North because of direct or indirect loans (from the IMF and the World Bank). This structure was set up by imposition (in many cases military) and blackmail during the decolonization process, and was consolidated with neoliberalism. Today, many countries are only able to pay the interest on their debts in economically favorable years, and generally become more and more indebted. A debt jubilee for the countries of the Global South is therefore needed as a form of compensation for leaving fossil fuels in the ground and financing a just transition.
