Public Forum: Strategies for a just and democratic climate economy

The economy is an increasingly significant terrain of climate politics. The climate debate has moved on from carbon pricing as the cornerstone of climate economics and is now focused on how climate change is, or should be, reshaping markets, industries and statecraft. However, existing climate agendas have placed significant faith in private capital to lead the transition, failed to wind down the fossil economy, and are becoming ever more entangled with geopolitical tensions and interests.

In this context, debt, equity and insurance markets, the global asset management industry, state industrial and trade policy, ‘critical’ sectors and infrastructures, and international financial institutions and architectures, have become key sites of climate activism. Social movements are developing new and creative strategies to end public and private finance for fossil fuels and combine demands for expanded climate mitigation and adaptation with goals including Indigenous self-determination, workers’ rights, environmental protection and international solidarity. These strategies stretch from pushing existing market and policy structures in a more progressive direction to visions that use climate change as a basis to create a more just and democratic economy.

This panel brings together researchers and activists working with think tanks, media, civil society organisations and trade unions for a discussion on the possibilities and challenges for building collective power in the climate economy.  

Speakers

Adrienne Buller, The Break Down

Adrienne is Founder and Director of the Break Down. She is a freelance writer and the author of The Value of a Whale (Manchester University Press, 2022) and, with Mathew Lawrence, Owning the Future: Power and Property in an Age of Crisis (Verso, 2022). Prior to founding the Break Down, Adrienne was Director of Research at Common Wealth, a progressive UK-based think tank and the host institution for The Break Down.

Holly Creenaune, The Sunrise Project

Holly is currently Program Manager, Coal Mining at The Sunrise Project and previously worked with the trade union United Voice as a national co-ordinator on fair economy campaigns.

Kate Mackenzie, The Polycrisis and Macquarie University

Kate Mackenzie is a researcher, strategic communications consultant and freelance journalist. She was a founding contributor to Bloomberg Green, and is co-editor of The Polycrisis, a climate and political economy newsletter. She worked for a decade at the Financial Times and then for several years in advocacy around Australian financial regulation and climate risk. She is also a fellow at Centre for Policy Development and adjunct fellow at Macquarie University's School of Social Sciences.

Dan Sherrell, Australian Council of Trade Unions

Dan is the Senior Adviser on Climate and Energy at the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Prior to joining the ACTU, he held a variety of leadership roles in American climate advocacy, including helping to win a Green New Deal bill for New York State and pass the first US federal climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Chair

Kurt Iveson, University of Sydney

Kurt is Professor of Urban Geography in the School of Geosciences. His work examines the processes that shape urban life, and to figure out how we can democratise these processes to make more equitable and sustainable cities. His work has explored how public spaces are used for political and cultural expression, how their democratic potential has been reshaped by different forms of policing and technology, and the significance of cities and urbanisation for democracy and its future.