GUESTS: Fossil Free Berlin, Klimaneustart Berlin, Philine Wedell (Senate Department for Economic Affairs, Energy and Industry), MODERATION: Maike Majewski (Transition Town Pankow)

In August 2019, Pankow’s local city council (BVV) declared a climate emergency in the municipality – which is also where Prater Galerie is located. Acting at a point in time when the climate debate became a central issue in Germany during the heatwave of 2019, the BVV followed the example of numerous cities and municipalities worldwide. That summer, the Initiative for Climate Emergency Berlin (Volksinitiative Klimanotstand Berlin) also handed over a petition with 36,458 valid signatures supporting the declaration of a climate emergency. The Berlin Senate decided to declare a climate emergency in December of the same year, renewing its commitment to the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Climate change is a global phenomenon that plays out very differently at the local level, affecting ecosystems and people worldwide in unequal ways. It represents a global challenge because neither extreme weather events, nor species extinctions, nor infectious diseases stop at state borders. Even the rise in temperatures that is now already unavoidable is going to drastically change the conditions for living organisms and forms of human social life. Locally-caused emissions have an impact on the global climate system, connecting distant places through the principle of cause and effect, and this bears on questions of climate justice. In particular the industrialised nations of the Global North, which historically have caused the highest emissions and profit most from globalisation, are called upon contribute to the mitigation of climate change and environmental destruction. The necessary transformation must be planned and consistently implemented at the federal, state, city and municipal levels.

The first panel discussion of the events program for Fossil Experience considered how a full commitment to climate justice and adherence to the 1.5°C limit will be implemented on a local level, and what consequences this will entail. What has been done since the climate emergency was declared in 2019? What structural changes in terms of infrastructure, energy provision, and transport must be implemented in Berlin, and which stakeholders are driving for such changes? How can the transformation be financed while ensuring that housing is affordable for all? How might art and culture contribute to the development of a post-fossil and sustainable city?

Fossil Free Berlin is a local group of volunteer-based and experienced campaigners. As a part of a worldwide network of over 1,300 Fossil Free groups located on all continents, they advocate for divestment in order to prevent climate change. Divestment is the opposite of investment. Money (for example from shares, mixed funds, and index funds) is consciously withdrawn from companies with undesirable or harmful business models so as to pressure them to change.

Klimaneustart Berlin is a civil movement that emerged out of the Initiative for Climate Emergency Berlin (Volksinitiative Klimanotstand Berlin). It acts as a platform and network to facilitate horizontal exchange between civil society, science, and politics. It is currently planning a referendum on the reform of the Berlin Energy Transition Law (Berliner Energiewendegesetz). This will secure enough scope for action to achieve the necessary reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. It will also define a timeline for these changes. The referendum’s central demand is the reduction of the timeframe in which climate neutrality is to be achieved from 2050 to 2030. Present measures are simply not adequate for making the requisite contribution to maintaining the 1.5°C limit.

Maike Majewski is an environmental educator and has coordinated the Transition Town Pankow network since 2011. All around the world, but adapted to local conditions, Transition initiatives use “hands, hearts and minds” to test out how people can live more sustainably and better together. In doing so, they are guided by the principles of permaculture: caring for the earth, caring for others, self-care, and the fair distribution of harvests and resources. In the face of today’s ecological and social crises, Transition Town initiatives help to shape the inevitable change with understanding, compassion and practical action – in conjunction with many other civic movements of course.

Philine Wedell is responsible for the Masterplan Solarcity Berlin: Solar energy has a significant renewable energy potential for Berlin. The Masterplan Solarcity demonstrates how Berlin can generate 25 percent of its power needs with solar power. To achieve this goal, solar installations with a capacity of at least 4,400 megawatts will be installed on the city’s roofs. The Senate Department for Economic Affairs, Energy and Industry, and its coordination office Masterplan Solarcity have been managing the implementation of the master plan since 2020 and are the first point of contact for all those involved.

GUESTS: Christopher Basaldú, Rachel O’Reilly, Esteban Servat, MODERATION: Sumugan Sivanesan (Black Earth Kollektiv)

Over the past decade, what is commonly referred to as ‘natural’ gas has come to be framed as a fuel to bridge the transition towards a fossil-free energy future. Because gas produces around half as much CO2 emissions than coal when burned, it is widely framed as a cleaner, alternative source of energy. However, this does not take into account its entire life cycle. ‘Natural’ gas is fossil gas. Its production releases methane into the atmosphere, a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Methane emissions are caused by deliberate venting or flaring, as well as by leakage at all stages of production, storage, transport, and consumption. Liquified natural gas (LNG) involves an especially energy-intensive procedure, as the fossil fuel must be cooled to -160°C to reach its compressed and liquefied form. LNG can be shipped over long distances without pipelines–the tankers used for transport are in turn powered by gas or heavy oil.

Despite its de facto negative climate balance, fossil gas, like nuclear energy, was defined as sustainable by the European Commission at the beginning of 2022. This classification promotes investments in the expansion of climate-damaging fossil energy projects. In order to become less dependent on Russian gas supplies, Germany is now pushing ahead with the completion of import terminals in Wilhelmshaven, Brunsbüttel, and Stade to expand the supply of LNG in the mid-term. What places and lifeworlds lie on the other side of corporate fossil fuel supply chains?

In this panel discussion, common rhetoric around the topic of ‘natural’ gas – also with regard to the transition to fossil-free gases – is critically examined with a particular focus on the production of unconventional gas, which forms an increasing share of total gas consumption. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is an energy-intensive technology that is extremely harmful to human and environmental health. It is banned in most parts of Europe. Still, the European economy benefits from the willingness of other nation-states and energy companies to exploit unconventional gas deposits while completely disregarding highly concerning consequences for land, water, and more-than-human communities in the vicinity. Unconventional gas extraction goes hand-in-hand with ongoing settler-colonial violence, as nation-states such as Australia and the US speculate on energy security concerns and potential export markets. In this panel, attention will be given to the expropriation and misuse of land and water, as corporate power and colonial continuities are confronted by sovereign Indigenous legal systems and calls for climate and environmental justice.

Christopher Basaldú, PhD, is Esto’k Gna (human being), a member of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas. Dr. Basaldú grew up in Brownsville and in Corpus Christi, Texas, before earning the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the Study of Religion from Harvard University. He then earned the degrees of Master of Arts in American Indian Studies and the Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology, both from the University of Arizona. Dr. Basaldú currently lives in Brownsville and proudly stands with his tribe and community to protect sacred sites, sacred homelands, and sacred waters.

Rachel O’Reilly is an artist, writer, independent researcher, curator, and educator born in Gladstone, Queensland, Australia on the unceded lands of the Gooreng-Gooreng people. Her work explores relationships between art and situated cultural practices, media philosophy, and political economy. In the last decade she has focused increasingly on infrastructures of art and energy, questions of law and governance, and urgencies of planetary survivance. Her artistic research project The Gas Imaginary (2013-2019) used poetry, animation, installation, documentary filmmaking, and public lectures to explain the racial and ecocidal logic of ‘unconventional’ fossil gas fracking expansions in settler colonial space. O’Reilly teaches at the Dutch Art Institute and is a PhD researcher at the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, London.

Esteban Servat is a scientist and exiled environmental activist from Argentina. After a decade of working in the Silicon Valley, he returned to Argentina to build a self-sustaining community. When the government brought fracking into the region, which is part of Vaca Muerta, Servat became an activist. As a co-creator of EcoLeaks and instigator of a massive anti fracking movement, Servat became the target of government attacks and was ultimately forced to leave the country. From Europe, he has continued his activism, building networks to connect environmental groups across continents and contexts. He has initiated and helped to build movements and networks such as Shale Must Fall and the Global Coastline Rebellion.

Sumugan Sivanesan is an anti-disciplinary artist, researcher, and writer. Often working collaboratively, his interests include political ontology, activist media, minority politics and more-than-human rights. He is currently developing fugitive radio as a platform for migrant, anticolonial and queer issues and music in Helsinki and beyond. In Berlin, he is part of Black Earth, a collective addressing the interacting issues of racism, gender, colonialism and climate justice. Sumugan earned a doctorate from the Transforming Cultures research centre at the University of Technology Sydney (2014) and was a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for English and American Studies (Cultural Studies), University of Potsdam (2016) to research Urban Eco-politics of the Anthropocene.

CURATION: Lena Johanna Reisner
CURATORIAL ADVISOR: Sonja Hornung
TEXTS: the curators, artists, and poets
TRANSLATIONS AND EDITING: Gegensatz, Bradley Schmidt, and Anna Förster
GRAPHIC DESIGN: fertigdesign
PRESS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS: Carola Uehlken
PRODUCTION: Carolina Redondo
TECHNICAL TEAM: Claudio Aguirre, Carlos Busquets, Marcos Mangani, Nicolas Matzner, Alberto Sardo, and Studio Kat Austen
TEAM PRATER GALERIE: Katharina von Hagenow, Lena Prents, and Julie Rüter

Thanks to Stefan Bienas, Sebastian Bodirsky, Haus für Poesie, Uli Huemer, Aleksandra Jach, Alexander Klose, Antje Majewski, Sybille Neumeyer, Lee Plested, Steve Shaba (Kraft Books), Anne Szefer-Karlsen, and Kunle Tejuoso (The Jazz Hole).

Fossil Experience was supported by Stiftung Kunstfonds, LOTTO-Stiftung Berlin, and the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, kindly supported by Förderband Kulturinitiative Berlin and Schankhalle Pfefferberg. The presentation of Stranger to the Trees by Kat Austen in cooperation with postgallery.online was supported by Neustart Kultur. Media partners: Berlin Art Link, taz.