The coloniality of green extractivism: Unearthing decarbonisation by dispossession through the case of nickel

Abstract

This article elaborates on the notion of “decarbonisation by dispossession” in order to shed light on the contradictory character of capital-driven energy transitions. First, we suggest conceptualising “decarbonisation” as a “socio-ecological fix” to intersecting, climate-induced crises of accumulation and hegemony, aimed at saving capital rather than the planet. Second, reflecting on the mineral intensity of “low carbon” technologies such as industrial-scale solar and wind farms, we approach ongoing transitions as a form of “extractivism”: a form of predatory appropriation of land and resources, embedded in global geographies of unequal ecological and value exchange. Third, examining the case of nickel, we argue that, despite elements that complicate a clear North-South binary, capital-driven transitions are ultimately reinforcing the colonial character of energy provision; they are causing an expansion of “transition mineral” frontiers and associated dispossession effects, and creating sacrifice zones of extraction and processing concentrated in formerly colonised countries. Considering also the contradictory outcomes of mineral-intensive transitions in terms of CO2 emissions reduction, our findings point to a structural inability of capital to solve its ecological contradiction. We conclude that radical proposals for a genuinely “just” transition, including those that mobilise a Green New Deal framework, should aim to decouple energy provision (and the reproduction of life more generally) from the material and epistemic violence of colonial-extractive capitalism.