The Marshall Plan and Austria’s Energy Transition

A dam in the mountains.
Photo: Pexels/ Pixabay (CC0)

Center Austria Director Marc Landry spoke at an event of the Austro-American Society’s Tirol Chapter at the University of Innsbruck on July 9, 2024. The event was hosted in cooperation with the University of Innsbruck – University of New Orleans International Summer School.

Synopsis:

One of the most momentous changes of the twentieth century was the astonishing increase in energy use. Rough calculations reveal that in the aggregate, humanity consumed more energy in the twentieth century than it had in the entirety of its previous history.

This development has been called the shift to high-energy society, and it is closely related to humanity also becoming the primary driver of environmental change on the planet—the Anthropocene. This presentation explores the role that the Marshall Plan played in facilitating this transition in Austria. On a per capita basis, Austria was among the foremost beneficiaries of Marshall aid. Historians have long shown the important role that the Marshall Plan played in the reconstruction of Austria’s economic and political systems. Recently, they have begun looking into the environmental history of the program as well.

Prof. Landry argues that Austria took advantage of Marshall aid to not only increase the amount of electricity generated in the country, but to set itself up to construct a national grid based on hydroelectricity. At the same time, this network would play a crucial role in allowing the creation of a European grid. From this perspective, the Marshall Plan was not just an economic and political program, but an effort to transform the country and region’s material basis with far-reaching consequences for environment and society.