Beware green colonialism

A green transition should avert worsening existing inequities

The global community has not yet shown sufficient resolve to curb global warming emissions to avert catastrophic climate change. Moreover, the very effort to transition away from dirty fossil fuels to cleaner ‘green’ energy is becoming increasingly contentious. 
Transitioning away from using fossil fuels is necessary, of course, yet the way this transition takes place merits careful consideration to avert worsening the existing inequities plaguing our world. 
The predominant concern amongst those who define the agenda on transitioning to green energy is to preserve powerful vested interests underpinning the prevailing world order. Enabling big business to alter their means and modes of production to become greener without incurring a loss in productivity and profits seems to be the biggest priority. Some effort is also being made to cushion the socio-economic cost of this needed energy transition, especially within powerful countries. 
Alongside automation, transiting to green energy does threaten layoffs in varied sectors involved in raw material production, in the processing of fossil fuels, and within sectors that are dependent on fossil fuel, such as the plastics and petrochemical industries.
Yet, new jobs are also being generated due to the emergent quest to become greener, for example, in the production of solar panels or wind turbines, or batteries, and other sorts of equipment needed to produce green energy. Many more jobs are also opening in the mining of critical minerals needed to fuel the green transition.
However, green financing initiatives seem adamant on use of the same market-based model pushed by IMF and World Bank via structural adjustment programmes since the 1980s which have compelled many indebted countries to privatise and succumb to a production hierarchy which is plagued by inequalities. Thus, the prevalent thinking on promoting an energy transition threatens to further widen the gap between the haves and have-nots. 
While China and India are making hectic efforts to emerge as employment hubs for green jobs, most other countries in the global south seem unable to benefit from the proposed green transition. It is likely that more rewarding green jobs will probably be concentrated in affluent countries. Conversely, poorer countries may primarily become the source for essential inputs needed to extract clean energy, even if this extraction takes place via highly exploitative and environmentally damaging methods.
Due to the exiting intellectual property rights regime, poorer countries will find it difficult to replicate technologies which can add value to their own raw materials. Hence, another ‘race to the bottom of the barrel’ may readily be triggered, with elites in poorer countries outdoing each other to attract foreign investments to either extract raw materials, or to enable off-shoring and out-sourcing, which uses cheap labour to enable large corporations to amass massive profits.
Lackluster labour and environmental compliance may attract foreign investments, but such investments lead to perturbing problems. The horror of child labour and desperately poor labourers toiling away in hazardous mines to produce cobalt needed for charging electric cars has already been documented in Congo. Many similar examples may become increasingly evident if the green transition continues to take place in a lopsided manner.
Unfortunately, poor people in Africa and Asia, who have not contributed to global carbon emission, are not only paying the highest price for climate change, but they will probably be made to bear the brunt of transitioning to green energy too. 
A more ‘just’ transition can help avert climate-induced catastrophes while also addressing existing global inequalities instead of reproducing them. However, ensuring a just transition cannot be expected from a profit- and growth-obsessed global economic system within which fair play and the equitable distribution of benefits remain elusive concepts.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 1^st, 2024
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