As the world transitions from fossil fuel to green and renewable energy, climate activists have expressed worries that this transition will maintain the practices of exploitation and dispossession that are still common in the global south, perpetuating injustices and widening the socioeconomic divide.
According to the activists, the global south, which comprises Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia excluding Israel, Japan, and South Korea, and Oceania excluding Australia and New Zealand, are blessed with natural resources, minerals and rare earth metals such as oil, cobalt, lithium, copper, nickel and graphite, among others.
The activists stated that although the global transition to renewable energies has become inevitable, it is important to have discussions about the frameworks and design choices used in an energy transition in order to shed light on transitions that would be unjust and on some problematic aspects of renewable energy that have been sidelined by the mainstream narrative.
To this end, these activists have come up with a book titled: “The Geopolitics of Green Colonialism.” According to them, the book provides a platform for the voices that have been conspicuously absent in debates around energy and climate in the Global North.
Drawing on case studies from across the Global South, the authors, which include, the director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) in Nigeria, Nnimmo Bassey; an activist academic and Professor of Environment and Sustainability at Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Ecuador, Miriam Lang; Professor of Sociology at the State University of Rio de Janeiro; Breno Bringel and project manager at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung West African office, Ibrahima Thiam, offered incisive critiques of green colonialism in its material, political and symbolic dimensions.
At a dialogue on Global Justice and Ecosocial Transition, in Lagos, the activists discussed the multiple entanglements that forcefully connect the transitions of different world regions in a globalised economy, and explore alternative pathways toward a liveable and globally just future for all.
Professor of Environment and Sustainability at Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Ecuador, Miriam Lang, said, the transition to green energy has posed a new form of injustice. Citing an example, she said Germany is going to different countries like Nigeria, South Africa, and Chile to carry out research on how it can get clean hydrogen to be imported for use in Germany.
“The plan is for the country to report to the United Nations that it is very clean at the expense of these countries. The people in Nigeria, Chile and Brazil, don’t have clean energy for cooking. Instead of putting solar panels on their roof, we see those huge solar farms built for corporate interest,” she lamented.
Lang disclosed that the book identified some dimensions of colonial appropriation around energy transition, adding that the first is seen in situations where the global south have become dumping sites for the global north.
“The second dimension is in the area of forest conservation scheme. “We have seen ‘so-called’ experts in climate change, forcing communities to protect their surroundings by a scheme of forest conservation. This is the forest where nobody can go in. We know that about 80 per cent of the still existing biodiversity on this planet was protected and preserved by indigenous population. But now, these experts want them to stay out of the forests, because the carbon in them has to remain untouched supposedly. This is a modern form of colonial appropriation, which is also very absurd,” she posited.
Another dimension of colonial appropriation is unequal exchange structure in the global market, in that clean technologies are produced in China, USA, and Europe, and then exported at high prices to countries like Nigeria; much higher prices than the price of oil that is going out from Nigeria to these countries, Lang stated.
Lang said the book has therefore advocated for energy sovereignty and the need for energy transition to be done in a decent and democratic way; where energy becomes a part of the reproduction of life and not for extract for economic growth.
“This book is a collective voice from the global south, bringing together different perspectives from science, activists and from different kinds of knowledge, in order to think about systemic alternatives. We embraced multiple forms of justice, which include social, ecological, gender, ethic and global justice.
“The book called on the need to change the narrative. It is not for activists to sit at the table in the climate negotiations and be heard at the table, we have to redefine what the table is, what will be discussed at the table. When we talk about reparation, it is important that we do not only talk about money, because money just goes away. We should decide what our actual needs are. Is it more important to have lots of monetary income or is it maybe more important to have clean water to drink and healthy food that won’t make us sick?” she stated.
In the same vein, the director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) in Nigeria, Nnimmo Bassey, said the whole idea of the book is not to be in the shelves, but to be read, to be discussed, to be debated, because the issues highlighted in the book are contemporary issues; the geopolitics of green colonialism.
“The world is moving from fossil energy to clean energy and the world leaders believe that once that transition happens, then justice has been served. As people say, transition is inevitable, but justice is not, it has to be fought for, hence the reason for this book, which is a collection of essays all tied up on the same topic. Colonialism is still alive, and the writers of this book are integrated in the struggle for social justice for the global south,” Bassey stated.