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About ECPI


The Energy and Climate Policy Institute for Just Transition (ECPI) is a research institute, an NGO aiming to transform the current energy politics dominated by the cartel of capital and the powerful into a more democratic based on social justice. The ECPI is working for contribute to stimulate and deepen social debates and deliberations on the political and social implications of climate change and energy crisis, and to search and develop, from the perspective of social justice, progressive alternatives to meet these challenges.

The overarching vision of the ECPI can be summarized as "Just Transition". The term emerged from the workers' movement in the US and Canada during the 80s and 90s.Originally, it meant that local communities and workers should not become the victim of the transition from an unsustainable to a sustainable society. In our opinion, "Just Transition" should be given a new and wider social meaning in the age of climate change and energy crisis and be the guiding of principle of what we might call the social process of transition.

The transition process should be 'just' and the burden and costs of the transition should not be unilaterally transferred or imposed on weaker social groups such as workers, citizens, and social minorities, as has been frequently the case in the developing as well as the developed countries.

We would also like to emphasize that the creativity, voluntarism, and participation of these social groups will make the transition process socially more robust, just and sustainable.


Mission


1. To become a think tank specialized in climate change and energy crisis issues. Despite the urgency of climate change and the energy crisis, there has been little research in Korea on what we should do as citizens to meet these challenges and in this regard the situation is not that different in the progressive social groups and movements. The ECPI as a think tank endeavors to collective research and develop progressive alternatives to meet these global challenges, and in order to do so it will conduct a variety of research project on the political, economic, scientific and social dimensions of the emerging climate and energy issues we face now.

2. To serve as a think tank for workers, farmers, citizens and social minorities. We know that the risks and costs of climate change and the energy crisis are unequally distributed among social groups, which is largely shaped by the power and class structure of a given society. However, the process and results of this inequitable distribution and particularly its crucial impacts on workers, farmers, and social minorities have, to our knowledge, never been closely examined. We aim to fill this lamentable knowledge gap and to make the unequal distribution of the risk and costs of climate change and energy crisis socially visible. We think and hope that this will empower weaker social groups and minorities so that there will be a greater chance of their voices being heard on climate and energy issues.

3. To contribute to constructing an open social debate and dialogue on climate and energy issues. We support the free use of information and knowledge. We refuse to monopolize the information and knowledge resources we obtain during our research and other activities. On the contrary, by allowing open and public use of these information and knowledge resources, we will try to facilitate active social debate and dialogue among concerned citizens and progressive social groups on climate and energy issues. The ECPI also tries to promote social dialogue between environment movement and labor movement for realizing Just Transition.

 
     Energy and Climate Policy Institute
    [04207] 2nd FL, 14-15, Mapo-daero 14ga-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul, Korea
    Tel. 82-2-6404-8440 _ Fax. 82-2-6402-8439 _ E-mail. mail@ecpi.or.kr _ Website. http://ecpi.or.kr