By Daniel Kanu
Environmental experts including Dr. Nnimmo Bassey (Nigeria), Prof Miriam Lang (Ecuador), Ibrahima Thiam (Senegal), Breno Bringel (Brazil), Roland Ngam (South Africa) among others have asked developing countries to be wary of the politics of green colonialism beneath the renewable energy transition.
They said beyond the gains of green energy are great threats which pose future danger and should be given active attention.
The experts made the call in Lagos yesterday, June 22, 2024 at the launch of the book “The Geopolitics of Green Colonialism.”
Speaking at the event Bassey, Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), said that “beneath the sustainability branding, these climate solutions are leading to new environmental injustices and green colonialism.
“The green growth and clean energy plans of the global North require the large-scale extraction of strategic minerals from the global South.”
Also speaking, Prof Lang made a case for climate justice, insisting on the need to explore alternative pathways toward a livable and globally-just future for all.
But all the speakers acknowledged that there is on-going injustices and imbalance which includes among others “exploitation of ‘unlimited resources’ in the run for transitioning to non-fossil fuel sources of energy, imposition of conservation lands to develop carbon market related projects, converting lands into toxic landfills of electronic waste and projecting an asymmetric market of renewable technology in which countries in the Global South pay a higher price.”
All those dimensions they submitted “have something in common – a narrative that disregards people’s connection to their places, to their land, a bond that defines people’s survival, spirituality, language, and legacy.”
Part of the revelation in the book launched is that: “While Western countries’ climate agenda is dominated by expressions such as renewable energy, clean technologies, and green transition, communities in the Global South who are currently facing the worst effects of the climate crisis, are also exposed to face the burdens of an unjust energy transition.”