Green colonialism in the energy transition

Often times colonialism is treated as a historical artefact, something people have read about in their history books, have been taught to condemn, and - for certain privileged people especially in the Global North - have perhaps never encountered or felt its impacts. In our increasingly technocratic world, the climate crisis and the current drive towards energy transition are frequently treated as elements that exist in the silos of market-driven sustainability policies. The very detachment of the colonial processes of extraction and exploitation from conversations on transition is the fuel that normalises techno-fixes as easy solutions to solve the climate crisis. What happens through this process of congeniality and normalisation is the tragic removal of responsibility from the shoulders of those dominating and exploitative powers of the North that have caused a majority of the world's sustainability problems. Hence, the erasure of colonial responsibility, of reparations, of the continuing neo-colonialism, are making discussions on sustainability transitions way easier - who doesn't want a shiny sustainability tag on their business model? Who doesn't want to stop humanity's impending doom (the bigger picture) when its only at the cost of a few thousand lives in some obscure corner of Africa, Asia, or Latin America?

Energy as a vehicle for colonialism

Energy has been a major component of colonial exploitation. Starting from the early 20th century, due to the Global North's growing hunger for ever more energy, the extraction of fossil fuels in Global South countries has increased tremendously. The extraction of oil and, more recently, fossil gas resources in West Africa and Latin America has led to the devastating destruction of the local socio-ecological systems, while profits have been accumulated in the pockets of Western oil & gas multinationals and complicit leaders at various levels of governance and decision-making. For example, in Nigeria, the communities in the Niger Delta have been suffering from enormous pollution stemming from Shell's oil extraction, which forced them to abandon their homes and relocate (Source). In the Amazon basin in Ecuador, Chevron's operations have led to significant destruction of the local ecology and caused severe damage to the indigenous communities (Source). Until today major Global North oil & gas multinationals are engaged in the (continued) colonial exploitation of oil & gas resources in the Global South. The extraction of those resources causes significant harm to the local ecology and communities, destroys countries' socio-political fabric, and channels profits into the Global North's pockets. Furthermore, Global North countries and their economies would not have been able to grow and maintain their socio-economic and political models without the constant inflow of cheap and abundant fossil fuels in the 20th and 21st centuries​​​​​​. While the ecological and social impact of this exploitation is and has been discussed from time to time in the Global North, the structural drivers, and the wider macroeconomic and contemporary geopolitical implications behind this exploitation are rarely addressed. For example, former colonies, such as Congo or Mali, remain in their position of subjugation by serving as a source of primary materials of any kind or being made dependent on 'development finance', leading to out-of-control debt traps.

The Global South is the bread basket of the Global North's energy use

The advent of sustainability discourses and the increasing recognition of the need to decarbonise our energy systems lends a new entry door to progress colonial practices. The current decarbonisation discourse in the Global North and, more recently, globally, revolves strongly around technological solutions. Renewable energy technologies, such as solar PV, electric vehicles, and green fuels, are hailed to save humanity from the looming climate crisis. One recent example of such a technocentric approach is the COP29 consensus about tripling renewables and doubling down on energy efficiency by 2030 (Source). This by no means is to argue that renewable energy is 'bad' - we do need a lot of renewables. But this is rather to underline that framing renewables as the one-stop solution to save humanity from a climate catastrophe, and in that process thoroughly decentring socio-political considerations in energy transitions, is extremely harmful. Simply shifting our pre-existing economic structures, consumption patterns and capitalistic tendencies to a more 'eco-friendly' mode of energy or renewables will not solve the problems.

Current energy transition discourses portray renewable energy as the hero helping us achieve our sustainability goals by meeting all our current and projected additional energy demands. There is little to no questioning of whether we actually need all that energy and whether we, not as individuals but rather as societies, need to lessen our demand. Hence, in this utopian world, all our unsustainable energy usage shall be replaced by sustainable renewable energy, and then the energy system will become sustainable. This is the current framing of the energy transition debate and it is and will continue the proliferation of the global energy injustice even further.

To feed the ever-growing (green) energy hunger of the Global North, the Global South will once again be exploited. The current exploitative relationships meted out through fossil fuel extraction have the propensity to shift towards renewables, all under the garb of sustainability. For example, Morocco is poised to play a critical role in the provision of cheap solar electricity from Northern Africa to Europe, so much so that entire landscapes shall be covered by solar PV parks (Source). Many proponents of such expansion like to argue that such plants are built on arid and deserted land where no humans live anyway, but a closer inspection proves that argument wrong. For example in the illegally occupied West Sahara, indigenous tribes have been inhabiting this region for centuries and are now forced to leave their ancestral land for the EU's sustainability goals (Source). Another example for colonial exploitation for the Global North's sustainability goals is the extraction of critical raw materials from Global South countries. For Global North technocrats, the sustainability transition in the transport sector builds on deploying electric vehicles, instead of radically changing the energy-and-material-wasting car-centric transport systems. Painting the inherently unsustainable car-centric mobility system green requires batteries and other technological components which need critical materials, such as Cobalt, Lithium, and Copper. Those critical materials can be found in high concentrations in Global South countries, such as Congo and Bolivia, and Global North countries are poised to exploit those resources no matter the human and environmental costs.

Green colonialism as a moral imperative

As argued previously, we need to deploy renewables worldwide and this will require the extraction of critical raw materials, but the current way of doing it will only further colonial extraction and move energy relations from fossil to green colonialism. Green colonialism, unlike fossil, focuses very much on the extraction of critical raw materials to make the Global North's unsustainable energy system green. This is achieved by sustaining the overconsumption of wasteful energy services in the Global North at the detriment of the Global South. It is also important to highlight that when we talk about overconsumption of the Global North, we are not referring to workers or single mothers, but rather systems and structures that keep reinforcing unsustainable economic growth and selfish consumption. These systems produce individuals like the hedge fund manager and greedy billionaire whose wealth and wellbeing are built on the extraction of people not only in the Global South but also in the Global North.

Green colonialism, unlike fossil colonialism, furthermore has a different moral imperative. Whereas it is easy to question the moral rationale behind fossil fuels, finding opposition to sustainable energy is difficult. The current rhetoric that subliminally justifies the exploitation of human life and resources in the Global South for the greater good - saving humanity from the climate crises - presupposes that certain lives are more valuable than others. Hence, in an atmosphere of increased and blinding support for the marvellous qualities of green energy, any opposition to renewables is not only tabooed but automatically quenched. De-politicisation of the energy transition and desensitisation of people towards topics like injustice and colonialism are the tools invented and furthered by technocrats who want to keep energy debates separated from socio-political questions. A purely technologically oriented energy transition supports the framework that anything that is 'green' is normatively right and does not question the colonial power dynamics which contributed to numerous contemporary problems (with the climate crisis being one) but rather propels them. Even worse, anyone who dares to argue against the deployment of renewable energy is labelled as uninformed or worse, a climate denier.

The current energy transition discourse and structures in place which lead to green colonialism are not there to save humanity, but to aid the greedy energy companies. It is about maintaining high profits, filling up the pockets of the few, and continuing the exploitation of the poor. For example, the decisions currently taken in the European Commission are not so much about making our energy systems sustainable but rather about unleashing the renewable energy companies' might as well as expanding the extraction of primary materials in numerous parts of the world.

Radical alternatives are the foundation of the energy transition

To move beyond unjust structures of energy production and consumption, we need to recognise that simply replacing fossil energy with renewables will be nothing but a symptomatic treatment of the global issues in question. Instead, we must employ a systems thinking approach to facilitate a just energy transition by analysing the underlying structures, patterns and mental models that have contributed to hundreds of years of exploitation and destruction of natural and living systems. This includes colonial practices of subjugating people from the Global South, grabbing resources out of resource-rich regions of the world (most of which are in the Global South), destruction of nature and biodiversity through profit-making business models, and in general a 'We need to maximise economic growth and output' approach to everything.

An energy transition in the Global North is futile if (i) changing our current economic models is not a core part of energy debates, particularly within industries, and (ii) if the transition is only a shift of the pre-existing exploitative business models from fossil to green. Radical change alternatives such as degrowth (Read More) would allow for a just energy transition and enable the wider sustainability goals to be met. In the Global North and the Global South.