We accompany and support social organizations to implement and consolidate community energy alternatives that promote autonomy, respect territorial life plans and contribute to socio-environmental transitions.
We seek to promote policy proposals that generate effective actions to address the climate crisis, promoting and respecting the principles of community energy from a perspective of just energy transition.
ENERGY AND CLIMATE JUSTICE
The Energy and Climate Justice Area concentrates its efforts on addressing the advances of extreme energy (gas, offshore and unconventional fields), the climate crisis and the construction of a decentralized, democratic and fair energy system. In addition, it strengthens the implementation processes of community energy as a contribution to a just energy transition. It is therefore organized into two major internal working groups: community energy and extreme energy and climate crisis. The Area is made up of seven people from disciplines such as Engineering, Physics, Communication and Pedagogy, some of them with extensive experience in energy issues.
Censat Agua Viva has been working on the energy issue since its beginnings: during the first years it worked with energy sector unions, including the Unión Sindical Obrera (USO) and the Sindicato de Trabajadores del Sector Eléctrico (Sintraelecol), supporting their training schools. Although the area has always had difficulties in accessing stable financing, it has managed to stimulate important social processes, as will be mentioned below. Since the end of the 20th century, in addition to union work, Censat Agua Viva began to support processes of resistance to dams and oil projects. Emblematic struggles against oil were supported, such as the resistance of the U’wa people against Occidental Petroleum Company in Boyacá, and the struggle of environmental organizations in Casanare affected by the oil projects of the British Petroleum Company.
Also at the end of the 20th century, the organization participated, at the invitation of Acción Ecológica of Ecuador, in the creation of the International Oilwatch Network, which resists oil activities. Later, in the first decade of the 21st century, after years of relations with people affected by dams, together with other organizations such as the Association of Peasants, Afro-descendants, Indigenous and Fishermen of the Ciénaga Grande del Sinú, Asprocig, the communities affected by the hydroelectric projects of Salvajina and Anchicayá, the process of resistance to the Guarinó water transfer supported by the Observatory of Environmental Conflicts, OCA, of the University of Caldas, and the indigenous resistance to the Ranchería river dam, in 2006, in the municipality of Buenos Aires, Cauca, was created the National Network of Peoples Affected by Hydroelectric Projects. In the same decade, the Atarraya en Defensa del Agua y la Energía was created, together with several Caribbean organizations, consisting of processes that fought against the abuses of public utilities, particularly the energy companies on the Caribbean coast. International debates and meetings on sovereignty and energy for sustainable societies were also promoted.
«The Energy and Climate Justice Area concentrates its efforts on addressing extreme energy developments.»
Starting in 2012, Censat Agua Viva begins to denounce fracking projects and promotes two national days (2013 and 2016) against fracking, managing to contribute to the nascent articulation of the Alliance Colombia Free of Fracking, ACLF, which is formally created in 2017 in the city of Barrancabermeja. Currently, the ACLF is made up of about 70 organizations from all over the country. A group of around 12 organizations, including Censat Agua Viva, are coordinating this space for articulation. ACLF has been successful in slowing the advance of fracking in the country and advancing the debate on extreme energy and energy transition.
It is important to mention that the focus of the Area has not changed, as it continues to be based on the questioning of the energy matrix that supports this society; however, it has managed to place the aforementioned emphasis.
Within the work strategies, the pedagogical theme is expressed in the School for the training of technicians and technicians in alternative energies, which was developed since 2014, based on exchanges of experiences between communities of the Caribbean coast, Santander and Antioquia. Currently, the School is made up of the Collective of Peasant and Community Reserves of Santander, Setaa Communities and the Social Movement in Defense of the Sogamoso and Chucurí Rivers.
The sources of funding as of the date of preparation of the EIP are Terre des Hommes Germany, BUND (Friends of the Earth Germany), the Energy Transition Fund project, Fastenaktion, Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) and the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
The Energy and Climate Justice Area works mainly in Santander, Antioquia, more recently in the Caribbean and, with less emphasis, in Huila and Tolima, where diploma courses are being developed with the Universidad Surcolombiana and Universidad del Tolima in coordination with Asoquimbo and the Environmental Committee of Tolima, respectively.
THE MOST RECENT
Encuentro Internacional de Energías Comunitarias, hacia la transformación del modelo energético prevalente
Informe internacional revela que el verdadero riesgo para Colombia es continuar con su dependencia económica a los combustibles fósiles
Revisión de las tecnologías del hidrógeno para la transición energética justa en Colombia
TRANSMEDIA EXPERIENCES
In addition to our areas of work, we have delved into particular aspects of various environmental problems in Colombia and around the world, in order to broaden social understanding and make visible the voices of communities and organizations that face them, which propose
Virtual exhibition of community experiences of Just Energy Transition, TEJ
Plataforma que visibiliza iniciativas y prácticas en energías alternativas desarrolladas por organizaciones sociales, urbanas y rurales de América Latina, a través de una muestra anual y herramientas digitales como el mapa de experiencias de TEJ del continente. Les invitamos a conocerlas, difundirlas y a participar de nuestra convocatoria anual.
We are land
En el año 2052, un grupo de personas envían mensajes al pasado, con el fin de advertir sobre la catástrofe ambiental, económica y social que sufrirá la ciudad de Bogotá. A partir de cambios culturales en la generación de energía, las conductas de consumo y la cooperación comunitaria, los protagonistas de este cómic intentarán cambiar el futuro de la humanidad.
FUNDERS AND DONORS
