Pro(to)topia

🌍 Join Us to Define Sustainable Prosperity in the EU! 🌟 We’re thrilled to invite you to the upcoming event “Defining Sustainable Prosperity in the EU: Towards Indicators Responding to Citizen Aspirations,” co-organized by Pro(to)topia and for Earth4All, and hosted by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). 🗓 Date: January 16, 2025 📍 Location: European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Rue Belliard 99/101, Room 1040 in Brussels (Hybrid Format) ⏰ Time: 09:30–12:15 CET Why Attend? The new European Commission has made sustainable prosperity one of the seven priorities of its work programme. Yet there has been no democratic discussion yet as to what sustainable prosperity means for Europe. This event seeks to place citizens’ voices at the center of this essential debate. Together, we’ll explore how social, environmental, political, and other indicators can reshape policy and ensure that progress reflects the aspirations of people and the planet. This event also builds on the conclusions of "New metrics for sustainable prosperity: Options for GDP+3", a report coordinated by Pro(to)topia and financed by the European Commission, DG RTD, which proposes a methodology for defining three Sustainable Prosperity headline indicators that go Beyond GDP and calls for democratic participation in their identification. You can check out the report here: https://shorturl.at/WtgDj The agenda features: 💡 Keynotes from thought leaders shaping the future of sustainable indicators, including Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Olivier De Schutter, and Enrico Giovannini 👥 Two engaging panels focusing on people-centered indicators and citizen engagement 🔑 Discussions on addressing inequality and long-term sustainability Whether you join us in Brussels or virtually, your voice matters in this critical dialogue about redefining prosperity for the EU. 🔗 Register here to attend!: https://lnkd.in/eaiUDd2C Let’s build a future of sustainable prosperity that goes beyond GDP and which reflects what truly matters to all of us. #SustainableProsperity #GDPPlus #FutureOfEurope #HybridEvent #NewCommission #BeyondGrowth #BeyondGDP #EuropeanGreenDeal   Sandrine Dixson-Declève Olivier De Schutter Peter Schmidt Diana Ognyanova Mario Biggeri Paula Fernandez-Wulff Sylvain Aubry Enrico Giovannini Celine Charveriat Saamah Abdallah

🌍 The G20 Brasil 2024 has convened. Our takeaway: A step forward on planetary boundaries, but far from enough In our T20 policy brief, we outlined actionable recommendations for a new global governance approach to planetary boundaries. The G20, with its unparalleled responsibility, access, and resources, is uniquely positioned to tackle the triple planetary crisis. The Leaders’ Declaration provides some notable steps, but critical gaps remain. ⛽Fossil fuels kept implicit: The commitment to the fossil fuel phase out remained implicit, only endorsing the UAE consensus from COP28 and cherry-picking the goal of tripling renewables and doubling energy efficiency, while the term “fossil fuels” was mentioned only once in relation to phasing out “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”. While not fully abandoned, the goal of the fossil fuel phase out must not be treated as secondary. ⚖️Adaptation prioritized over mitigation: The G20 communique calls for a “whole-of-society” and “whole-of-economy” adaptation to climate impacts. This greater inclusion of climate adaptation and its nuanced understanding of stressing both economic and social policies is commendable and should inspire the next G20 meetings. However, it should not side-step the mitigation objective. Instead, future G20s should work on integrating the two objectives and leverage synergies between effective mitigation and adaptation policies. 🤝Emphasis on Just Transition Principles: The communique endorses the Principles for Just and Inclusive Energy Transitions published by the Energy Transitions working group this October. While this document also fails to mention fossil fuels explicitly, we salute the emphasis on social dialogue, social protection, and the respect of local communities’ rights including indigenous peoples. 💰 Advance on Climate Finance, but not as much as hoped: The Brazilian Presidency half-delivered on its flagship project of announcing a 2-% tax on the ultra wealthy to finance poverty and climate impact objectives, only calling to “engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed.” Yet, debt was addressed separately from climate impacts despite their interdependence, representing a missed opportunity, next to the consideration of aviation and freight levies for financing. Conclusion: An opportunity for South Africa We commend Brazil for moving beyond the lowest common denominator. As Brazil will host COP30, they should focus on fossil fuels as much as on adaptation finance in the face of increasing denial by fossil fuel companies and their strong lobbies. While the G20 communique remains vague in many objectives, we advise South Africa to pick up where Brazil left off and continue working on fleshing out the important objectives while not failing to continuously press for effective mitigation and transition efforts.    Check out our policy recommendations and T20 Brasil Policy brief:  https://shorturl.at/8vIzO FEPS Europe

What will be Europe’s role in advancing global justice in the next five years? This critical question should be at the heart of the new European Commission’s priorities. These recent weeks have only added to the growing realization amongst European policy makers, which started to emerge during the last mandate of the European Commission, that times have irreversibly changed: the world has now entered a period of more geopolitical tensions, transactionalism, and a shift in the international order. In this fundamentally new context, fundamental aspirations to global justice are falling off the international agenda. The insufficient solidarity at COP29 is only one of many examples of that. While concerning, the current neglect could present an opportunity for the EU to position itself anew and to realign its professed values with its external actions. In this summary report produced with the support of the Open Society Foundations, we investigated the EU’s role in global justice and the potential issues that it can position itself in. We also reviewed the performance of Ursula Von der Leyen’s geopolitical Union, laying the groundwork of where it can pick up, improve, and turn onto a new path. Most importantly, we identified key strategies for civil society and foundations of how to support the EU to choose the right path to support the global justice agenda. We want to thank all civil society leaders and experts from the Global South and the Global North who have supported this research endeavor by sharing their expertise with us: Maria Victoria Alvarez, Laurent Bontoux, Babatunde Fagbayibo, Saliem Fakir, Daniele Fattibene, Alexandre Fernandes, Catherine Giboin, Antoine Oger, Niclas Frederic Poitiers, and Emílio Tostão. We also thank CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies), for their framework on actorness, which helped inform our thinking for this report. You can check out the summary strategy note here: https://shorturl.at/mzBEi Karim Harris, Sofía Martínez, FEPS Europe, Andrea Renda

How can we care for older people in a changing climate? Please join us for a regional dialogue on ageing and climate change in Latin America. Global Alliance for Care / Alianza Global por los Cuidados

With the reelection of Trump back into office, the TESCREAL ideology is in a more powerful position than ever. Never heard of TESCREAL before? Then we would highly encourage you to read our newest blog post: TESCREAL represents a spectrum of overlapping ideologies deeply rooted in rationalist, eugenic, and predominantly-white ideals that envisions a “techno-utopian” vision for the future, where advanced technologies promise radical abundance, human reengineering, immortality, and the colonization of the universe. This set of ideologies is largely driven by some of the most powerful tech titans of today, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and Elon Musk who was one of Trump’s key allies in his reelection campaign. Their vision seems to prioritize theoretical future lives over the welfare of today’s people, casting climate change as almost irrelevant in comparison to their vision of digitized futures. Seemingly willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of generations of the immediate today and tomorrow for the  dream of sprawling post-human civilizations filled with trillions of simulated beings through the expansion of AI and space explorations, it undermines the fight for an equitable fossil fuel phase out and the fight against climate change.  TESCREAL, in our opinion, has a great potential to endanger the wellbeing of our societies and threatens to widen the escalating inequalities even more. We argue in favor of an alternative vision, one that prioritizes harmony between humans and living beings on this planet and envisions a caring society. Europe should use this opportunity to seek democratic citizen engagements for them to define the vision of the future that they would like to foster, one that truly benefits them and their next generations.  Feel free to check out the blog and share it with your network. Let’s shine a light on this movement and counter with a more constructive and harmonious narrative of what future we want and which is worth saving. Pro(to)topia Eloïse Bodin Susanne de Jong Global Alliance for Care / Alianza Global por los Cuidados

Yesterday, October 29th, we celebrated the International Day of care and support! Pro(to)topia is a proud member of the Global Alliance for Care / Alianza Global por los Cuidados, a network of organizations dedicated to building a world that values caregiving as essential work and central to our societies. This day reminds us of the critical role care plays in fostering connected, sustainable communities. In this spirit, we're excited to announce that we’re working on a blog post exploring the role of technology in our society, particularly in relation to care. Stay tuned! #InternationalDayOfCare #GlobalAllianceForCare #CaringSociety 

At the #SummitOfTheFuture, Pro(to)topia was able to present our work on pushing for green caring societies during the event “Caring Territories and Feminist Municipalism for Climate Action: Protecting the Commons and Climate Justice”, organized notably by the Global Alliance for Care / Alianza Global por los Cuidados, UN Women and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). Our presentation (see an excerpt below) highlighted the urgent need to address the twin crisis of care—which affects both people and the environment. To illustrate the impact of the twin crisis, but also offer a way forward, we shortly presented our work with the project Lament, an innovative approach to address collective trauma caused by extreme wildfires. What was particularly heartening was to hear so many mayors, from all around the world, talking about their visions and concrete actions to make a green caring society a reality at local level. As an added bonus, we were able to connect with representatives from the Montpellier, Ville, Métropole et CCAS –the HQ of Pro(to)topia–, reinforcing local partnerships and aligning our shared goals of creating caring and just futures at all levels. There’s a persistent undervaluing of care in society and the economy, with short-term priorities often sidelining the long-term value of care for both social systems and ecosystems. GDP-driven policies fail to acknowledge the contributions of care, leading to a gap in addressing these crises effectively. The #PactForTheFuture offers a few avenues for positive change  by proposing concrete actions to go beyond GDP. The Pact also mentions the importance of strengthening investments in the care and support economy in Action 8 on gender equality and highlights the need to dismantle inequalities in the care economy in Action 34 on youth.  Let’s hope that we can build from this basis to put a holistic care framework -which unites care for self, for others and for the living world– at the center of CSW69 / Beijing+30 and the UN Social Summit in 2025. Through our approach at Pro(to)topia, centered on "imagineering" a caring society, we will continue to push decision-makers to harness the power of imagination to envision and enact a better, sustainable future.

As David Wallace-Wells pointed out in The Uninhabitable Planet, “we suffer from an incredible failure of imagination.” This sentiment rings true, particularly in the face of global inaction on fossil fuel phase-outs, in spite of mounting disasters caused by climate change. The #SummitOfTheFuture serves as another reminder of this, as the 66-page #PactForTheFuture, fails to explicitly call for a fossil fuel phase-out. The best that the international community could agree to is much less explicit. The language refers to  “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly, and equitable manner” while promoting technologies such as carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). In fact, the phrase fossil fuel appears only twice—once to reference the phasing out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies “as soon as possible”. This lack of urgency and boldness in envisioning more actionable solutions than “keeping with the science” pays tribute to this collective lacking ability to imagine catastrophic outcomes. But the greater loss might be the failure to envision a fossil-free future—a world that is not only possible but also achievable and desirable. The true failure lies in our collective inability to imagine alternative futures where societies thrive without fossil fuels. A world free of fossil fuels can happen, but we must dare to imagine it and actively work towards making it a reality. With this goal in mind, our CEO Celine Charveriat joined FEPS at the Summit of the Future to present our recent papers on a Global Deal for Governing the Planetary Boundaries and our T20 policy brief, centering the need for an equitable fossil fuel phase-out. Thank you to Maria João Rodrigues from FEPS Europe other partners such as Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Renner Institut, Fondation Jean-Jaurès, Olof Palme International Center, TASC - Think-tank for Action on Social Change, Earth4All, The Club of Rome, Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea), and T20 Brasil. You can read the chapter and our T20 Policy Brief linked below: https://lnkd.in/eabG3P4S https://shorturl.at/qZkbK At Pro(to)topia, achieving a fossil-fuel-free society is one of our core work pillars. Through our approach of "imagineering" a caring society, we will continue to push decision-makers to harness the power of imagination to envision and enact a better, sustainable future. Stay tuned for our upcoming projects, including a foresight exercise on how a global and equitable fossil fuel phase-out can realistically be achieved, but also, maybe more surprisingly, for the theater play of our colleague Eloïse Bodin.  

Off to NYC for UNGA/Summit of the Future for Pro(to)topia Four priorities: - What governance for planetary boundaries as part of a new global deal? Launching FEPS Europe ´s book. - Beyond GDP indicators and frameworks: following up on the GDP+3 paper I co-wrote and strategising with Sandrine Dixson-Declève & Simon Ticehurst in light of the potential launch at the Summit of an intergovernmental process on this topic. - Can care become a uniting framework for civil society ahead of the social summit and post-2030 discussions? Looking forward to conversations+events with the Global Alliance for Care / Alianza Global por los Cuidados as well as the NGO ´s people assembly. - Exploring the possibility of stakeholder&artist led strategic foresight on equitable fossil fuel phase out with Mariam Kemple Hardy Maya Mailer Alex Rafalowicz Maya Mithika Mwenda, PhD based on the masters’ course at PSIA - Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po. Also checking in with the excellent Stephen Hale in my role of chair of the board of Climate Catalyst! Ping me if you are there and working on the above&want to catch up!

En route!