Ibrahima Thiam from Senegal (left); Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Dr. Nnimmo Bassey; Professor Miriam Liang of Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar, Ecuador; Roland Ngam from South Africa and Professor Breno Bringel of the State University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at the presentation of a book: The Geopolitics of Green Colonialism: Global Justice and Ecosocial Transitions in Lagos
By Edu Abade
As promoters of green energy continually shift attention to Africa for a balance of energy transition from fossil fuels or ‘dirty energy’ resources, governments, policy makers, investors in renewable sources and environmentalists of the Global South have been urged to avoid mistakes of the past and shun the Global North’s ‘energy colonialism’ in the name of transition.
Insisting that the Global North is bent on environmental dispossession of the Global South, some climate activists under the aegis of Beyond Development Working Group (BDWG) have maintained that countries of the Global South, especially Africa, must resist the emergence of new capitalists of the energy transition through decarbonization and push for a just energy transition on the continent’s territories.
Speaking at the presentation of a book titled: The Geopolitics of Green Colonialism: Global Justice and Eco-social Transitions, a professor of sociology at the State University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Breno Bringel, stressed the need for Nigeria, Africa and countries of the Global South to dialogue their way out of environmental crises, noting that contemporary capitalists were bent on increasing their green energy sources.
Bringel, who reviewed the book in Lagos on Saturday, June 22, 2024, said it was the result of collective dialogue among 25 authors from 16 countries, stressing that the contributors resolved that it was fundamental to start the dialogue on climate crisis around environmental injustice in the Global South.
“There is an increasing push for cleaner energy worldwide and this is coming with the emergence of new advocates for a shift from fossil fuels or dirty energy sources to clean energy and a timely energy transition to tackle the climate crises that countries of the Global North have foisted on the Global South through emissions from their extractive and industrial activities.
“Decarbonization is not seen as part of the Climate finance and transition based on justice and equity to unmask green colonialism, the impact in our countries and also understand the hypocrisy behind the issue, especially during climate talks.
“Green colonialism is climate colonialism, but if we can see the alternatives, it means they do exist and this is based on the struggles in Africa and other countries of the Global South which bear the burden of climate crises caused by the Global North,” he stated.
In his intervention, Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, noted that the book was meant to be discussed, adding that Nigeria, Africa and other countries of the Global South needed to pay closer attention to the emerging issues of green colonialism.
“We know that colonialism is still alive and active. Green colonialism is still grappling the world, especially in the Global South in that investors and capitalists tend to grab acres of land in territories they see as vacant and unoccupied. It is worrisome when they see Africa or some locations in the Global South as empty spaces,” he said.
Citing the case of Delta State where the intrusion of carbon colonialism led to the acquisition of 280,000 hectares of land for a Blue Carbon project, he stressed that climate action has become climate fiction in the sense that the youths and future generations will bear the burden of the actions and inactions of their forebears with regard to the climate crises.
He also pointed out that promoters of fossil fuel expansion have continually insisted that there is no alternative, adding that the narrative remains that of false solutions to the adaptation and mitigation of climate change.
Also speaking, promoter of responsible use of natural resources and climate justice in Senegal, Ibrahima Thiam, said the geo-politics in French West Africa, especially in Senegal, was intensifying just like in other African countries and has started creating a new generation of green energy colonizers.
On her part, a professor of environment and sustainability at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar in Ecuador, Miriam Lang, in her presentation titled: Towards a New Eco-Territorial Internationalism, said gender justice and global justice could only be seen as infinite sources of the imposition of certain conversation schemes in the quest to conquer weaker countries impacted by climate crises.
She lamented that the delay in climate justice have made countries of the Global South the dumpsites and destination of digital trash of energy transition from the countries of the Global North with greater power and financial resources.
Her words: “Due to the unequal exchange structure of the global market, technology will be produced in the countries and imported into countries like Nigeria and other low-income countries of the Global South.
“Also detrimental to the cause of environmental justice is the eternal debt factor, which ensured that past and present colonialists based the duty of care on women and so we have to unite and mobilize in the Global South to claim the debt and resist all identified green energy capture by powerful nations of the Global North.”
An environmental activist from South Africa, Roland Ngam, said efforts to transition from fossil fuels poison the global system to better alternatives by people who have been programmed to achieve sinister and predetermined goals.
“We need to start demanding repatriation, because with repatriation, it is not about money, it can be done in form of investments and infrastructure that can benefit everybody. We need democratic alternatives from below and to democratically manage our societies from below. Climate issues should be seen as daily challenge,” he stressed.
The book, which has been unveiled in some African countries including Nigeria, will be launched in other countries of the Global South to create the awareness that “while climate agenda is dominated by renewable energy, clean technologies and green transition, communities in the Global South facing the worst impacts of the climate crisis are also exposed to unjust energy transition.
A section of the book published by Pluto Books states: “The time for denial is over. Across the Global North, the question of how to respond to the climate crisis has been answered: with a shift to renewable, electric cars, carbon trading and hydrogen. Green News Deals across Europe and North America promise to reduce emissions while creating new jobs.
“But 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. The geopolitics of transition implies sacrificing not only territories, but truly sustainable ways of inhabiting the world. A new subordination in the global energy economy prevents societies in the South from developing sovereign strategies to foster a dignified life….”
