Jungle

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
urgewald
logo
legal form registered association
founding 1992
founder Heffa Schücking
Seat Sassenberg
motto Environment and human rights lawyer
main emphasis Environmental protection, human rights
method Campaigns , lobbying
Employees 21st
Members <40
Website urgewald.org

Urgewald is a German non-profit association based in Sassenberg that has been committed to environmental protection and human rights since 1992 . As an environmental protection organization, it accompanies German economic and development policy critically and documents a. a. the social, ecological and economic consequences of export credits such as B. Hermes guarantees , for energy generation or dam projects, for nuclear power projects and paper production .

In the study “Bitter Coal” in collaboration with “Keepers of the Mountains” and the human rights organization FIAN , Urgewald criticizes the shifting of perpetual costs in hard coal mining to Colombia , South Africa , the USA and Russia , in particular due to the blasting away of mountain peaks by mountain top removal mining . Transparency in hard coal imports for German electricity production as well as binding and verifiable social and environmental standards are required .

In the movement of the divestment from fossil energy companies, successes were achieved with decisive help from Urgewald: The Allianz Group and the Norwegian State Pension Fund , the largest state fund in the world (as of 2013), declared a significant reduction in investments in the coal industry .

Working method and campaigns

Urgewald regularly organizes campaigns to draw attention to topics .

These mostly relate to critical sectors such as arms trade, nuclear power plants or the coal industry. The focus is on the key role of financiers, such as banks, insurers and investors, whose money is used to finance environmental and human rights violations. In this context, (multilateral) development banks and their development projects also come under fire .

In addition , concerted actions attracted a lot of attention :

  • Urgewald played a key role in the fact that a consortium of European banks withdrew plans to finance a Bulgarian nuclear power plant in the earthquake-prone Belene .
  • Urgewald opposed the financing of the Dakota Access Pipeline and refers to the figures compiled by the partner organization BankTrack .

Urgewald specifically targeted Deutsche Bank , Bayerische Landesbank and Thyssenkrupp .

Research on the coal industry

At the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn 2017 (COP 23), Urgewald presented a self-researched database on the largest coal companies worldwide. B. wants to make it easier for financial service providers to conduct their own research on appropriate investment management and divestment decisions. The list of 775 companies has been updated with further information under the heading Global Coal Exit List: Divestment Made Easy! (“List of global coal exit: Divestment made easy!”) Published on coalexit.org .

In October 2018, the Coal Plant Developers List followed ("List of developers of coal-fired power plants"). This contains updated information on the 120 companies that, according to Urgewald's criteria, are most important for a divestment from coal. Two months later, Urgewald, together with BankTrack and 26 other non-governmental organizations, published data on the banks and investors who finance the 120 companies on the Coal Plant Developers List .

successes

Among the greatest successes of Urgewald are the various divestment decisions that were largely brought about by the organization. Among the greatest successes were u. a. the divestment decision of the State Pension Fund of the Kingdom of Norway in 2015, and the withdrawal of large insurance companies such as Axa and Allianz from the insurance of coal businesses.

Racism debate

In the summer of 2020 there was a racism debate because the name of the environmental protection organization Urgewald was mentioned in a tweet from Greenpeace , but the Urgewald activist Tonny Nowshin , who was the only person of color involved, was not shown in the published photos, only the white activists from Fridays For Future and Greenpeace.

structure

The board consists of Hedwig Tarner , Werner Rolf and Christoph Benze. Heffa Schücking is the managing director . Urgewald is a member of the umbrella association of critical shareholders .

Awards

society

2010: Prize for civil courage from the Solbach Freise Foundation

Heffa Schücking

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1] , as of April 2019
  2. ↑ Zeit online: Urgewald against Hermes from August 1, 2010
  3. ^ Spiegel Online: Urgewald stops dam project from November 1, 1995
  4. ^ Urgewald: Campaigns
  5. ^ Spiegel Online: Fight Against the Poor, December 18, 2000
  6. ↑ FAZ: Warm words - cold overload of December 10, 2008
  7. ↑ Die für Deutschen Kohlestrom , Alexandra Endres in: Die Zeit , April 16, 2013, accessed July 18, 2013
  8. ↑ Bitter coal , Haidy dam in: new Germany , April 17th, 2013 accessed July 18, 2013
  9. ↑ Climate Alliance Germany , November 24, 2015, die-klima-allianz.de: Allianz says goodbye to coal: Great success of the urgewald divestment campaign! , accessed November 25, 2016
  10. ↑ zeit.de , November 24, 2015, Alexandra Endres: A victory for the coal opponents , accessed on November 25, 2016
  11. ↑ heise.de , TELEPOLIS , June 7, 2015, Thomas Pany: Norway decides to divest coal , accessed on November 25, 2016
  12. ↑ Brochure: The Arms of My Bank . In: urgewald e. V. April 5, 2016 ( urgewald.org [accessed December 9, 2016]).
  13. ^ Angra 3, Brazil . In: urgewald e. V. ( urgewald.org [accessed December 9, 2016]).
  14. ^ German financial institutions and coal . In: urgewald e. V. January 18, 2016 ( urgewald.org [accessed December 9, 2016]).
  15. ↑ World Bank: Downsides for Climate & People | urgewald. Retrieved February 8, 2019 .
  16. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Banks bow to Öko-Gruppe from October 21, 2006.
  17. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Off for Belene from October 29, 2009.
  18. ↑ Bayern LB: Funder of the scandal oil pipeline "Dakota Access" . In: urgewald e. V. ( urgewald.org [accessed December 9, 2016]).
  19. ^ Dakota Access Pipeline, Sectors: oil and gas. BankTrack, January 10, 2017, accessed January 25, 2017 .
  20. ↑ Deutsche Bank: Cultural change not in sight! In: urgewald e. V. November 3, 2010 ( urgewald.org [accessed December 9, 2016]).
  21. ↑ BayernLB . In: urgewald e. V. ( urgewald.org [accessed December 9, 2016]).
  22. ↑ ThyssenKrupp . In: urgewald e. V. ( urgewald.org [accessed December 9, 2016]).
  23. ↑ coalexit.org: Global Coal Exit List: Divestment Made Easy! (November 28, 2017)
  24. ↑ Investments in Coal Power Expansion | coalexit.org. Retrieved February 8, 2019 .
  25. ↑ Norway is serious about divestment . In: klimaretter.info . March 10, 2016 ( klimaretter.info [accessed November 22, 2018]).
  26. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau: Insurer: Allianz gets out of coal . In: Frankfurter Rundschau . May 4, 2018 ( fr.de [accessed November 22, 2018]).
  27. ↑ The climate movement has a problem with racism. In: klimareporter.de. June 17, 2020, accessed on August 3, 2020 (German).
  28. ↑ Tonny Nowshin: air movement and discrimination: Green racism . In: The daily newspaper : taz . June 18, 2020, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed on August 3, 2020]).
  29. ↑ A reproach that hits us. In: greenpeace.de. June 18, 2020, accessed August 3, 2020 .
  30. ^ Movement reacts: The racism problem from Fridays for Future. In: watson.de . July 13, 2020, accessed August 3, 2020 .
  31. ↑ "The media are reporting more about white school children" , Jetzt.de , July 26, 2020
  32. ↑ Urgewald: Imprint
  33. ↑ goldmanprize.org
  34. ↑ utopia.de ( Memento of the original from March 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.utopia.de
  35. ↑ badische-zeitung.de , July 3, 2017: Heffa Schücking is electricity rebel of the year