Episode 16 - A Public Energy Response to the Climate Emergency

Reinventing Solidarity

Discussing three important articles from the spring 2021 issue, New Labor Forum columnist Sean Sweeney hosts a conversation with Sinead Mercier and Dominic Brown on the role of publicly owned energy in halting the climate crisis. Mercier offers as a model the Republic of Ireland’s creation in the 1920s of the fantastically successful state owned and operated Electricity Supply Board; Brown describes advancements made in post-Apartheid South Africa to dramatically expand public access to the state-owned energy system, presently curtailed by measures to privatize the country’s utility; and Sweeney asserts the importance of the AMLO government’s efforts to guard the sovereignty of publicly owned energy in Mexico, arguing that this lays a vital foundation for a transition to renewables.