The energy transition, driven by the urgency of decarbonization, has been at the center of global climate debates. This discussion takes place on several fronts - political, economic, social and technical - and involves multiple actors: governments, companies, international organizations, communities and civil society.
Seen as essential to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, the energy transition involves replacing fossil sources (coal, oil and gas) with renewable sources (solar, wind, water, biomass), as well as investments in energy efficiency, electrification and new technologies (such as green hydrogen and long-life batteries), with a view to limiting global warming to 1.5°C.
However, beneath the surface of technological solutions and carbon neutrality targets, a fundamental question emerges: who benefits from this transition - and who is left behind? This is a strategic and ethical issue that needs to be placed at the center of public policies and energy infrastructure projects.
The Sustainability Paradox: green but unequal
Although the replacement of fossil sources with renewables is vital to mitigating climate change, the way in which this transition has been conducted raises serious concerns. Wind farms, solar power plants, "low-carbon" hydroelectric plants and other green infrastructures have been expanding at a rapid pace, often in vulnerable territories - indigenous areas, quilombolas, urban peripheries or marginalized rural areas, or traditional populations. In these places, large projects are implemented with little or no listening to the affected communities, reproducing logics of expropriation and invisibilization historically associated with extractivism, in which the benefits are exported while the impacts remain.
By prioritizing the technical and market goals of a "clean transition", without considering the social and territorial dimensions, the risk is to build a transition that is green in speech but unfair in practice - generating a new layer of exclusion: green social exclusion.
Environmental racism and energy injustice
This process has been analyzed by authors in the field of environmental justice as a contemporary manifestation of the environmental racismhistorically marginalized communities are once again pushed into sacrifice zones, now in the name of sustainability. At the same time, the benefits of clean energy - such as reliable access, reduced tariffs or profit-sharing - rarely reach local populations.
This reveals a picture of energy injustice, in which the right to renewable energy is not treated as a common good, but as a commodity concentrated in the hands of large corporations. The logic of the "top-down transition" risks perpetuating structural inequalities instead of tackling them.
The urgency of a just energy transition
To prevent the energy transition from becoming a new form of green colonialism, it is essential to adopt principles of socio-environmental justiceThis is a process that recognizes and includes the affected communities as protagonists in energy decisions. This implies:
- Free, prior and informed consultationin accordance with ILO Convention 169.
- Decentralized and community energy generation modelsThe project will be based on local knowledge and will promote energy autonomy.
- Redistribution of transition benefitswith reinvestment in health, education and local infrastructure.
- Recognition of traditional territories and ecosystems as subjects of lawand not just as "viable zones" for implementing projects.
Transition as opportunity or threat
The energy transition is a historic window to rethink not only the energy matrix, but the very foundations of development, property and well-being. If conducted in a critical, participatory and territorialized way, it can be a lever for climate justice. But if it maintains the current concentrating and technocratic model, it risks becoming yet another chapter in the long history of socio-environmental exclusion on the world's peripheries.
The question that should guide us is: transition for whom - and with whom?
Sources:
MAB - Movement of People Affected by Dams and the Polis Institute
https://mab.org.br/
GUDYNAS, Eduardo. ExtractivismsPolitics, Economy and Ecology. Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2021.
GUERRERO, Andrés. Geopolitics of the global energy transformation and territorial dynamics of the energy transition in South America. Society & Nature, v. 32, n. 2, p. 1-29, 2020.
PACHECO, Tânia; BRAZILIAN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE NETWORK. Environmental Racism: Voices, perceptions and initiatives from Brazil. Rio de Janeiro: Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2010.
SASSEN, Saskia. Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2014.
