In the next instalment of the Compass collaboration with Green Week, Bridget Tiller talks about extractivism and the idea of a Global Green New Deal. If you’re interested in this topic, check out the Green Week discussion event happening this evening on Zoom (link at the bottom of the article).
You’ve probably heard of the Green New Deal: it’s been all over the news in recent years, particularly following the buzz created in the USA by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The idea of Green New Deal (GND) doesn’t begin or end here, though, with similar ideas under the same name being promoted across many regions of the world, often specific to a particular country or region. Here in the UK, our own Labour party have set out their own plans for a GND, which you can check out here. This article will mainly focus on this UK-based version – but there are many overlaps with other GNDs proposed around the world.
So what’s good about this new vision for the world, and what are the problems with it?
When taken at face value, various iterations of the GND set out some really exciting goals. They display values which tally with my own, from commitment to zero carbon by 2030, to the centring of human rights, from the ‘just transition’ of jobs into green industry to affordable healthcare. The list goes on! However, scratch beneath the surface and it is easy to see a worrying lack of concern for the ways in which this transition will be supported.
One of the most prominent critiques of the GND’s ideology is its treatment of extractivism. The policies laid out are heavily infrastructure-based, with massive investments in electric cars, public transport, and renewable energy like wind and solar. But these changes don’t have the supposedly ‘immaculate conception’ (as one critic puts it) that the GND seems to assume they will. Huge amounts of raw materials will be required to enable this transition, as wind turbines, batteries and solar panels are all dependent on materials such as lithium and cobalt. As we’ll see, this assumption has led to some pretty egregious environmental oversights, as well as being very open to the trap of neo-colonialism.
Ironically, this will have pretty bad adverse environmental effects unless the way in which we extract is seriously overhauled. Currently, around 50% of global emissions are caused by extractive activities such as mining. The sites themselves are subject to various problems with water quality, deforestation and habitat destruction, not to mention the adverse social and health effects when extraction causes conflict. One example of this is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where cobalt is largely mined. Here, extraction has added fuel to the fire of a deadly conflict and the mining site is now one of the top ten most polluted places in the world. But under the GND, for the UK alone to meet its electric car target, global cobalt extraction will have to double. If the serious problems – including environmental degradation and social upheaval – associated with extracting resources is not explicitly addressed in a GND, it will fail at the first hurdle.
But even if a GND could address these issues – and that’s a big if – is the GND a recipe for neo-colonialism anyway? The vast majority of the resources we need for the green transition are found in developing nations. If we’re simply using the resources of another country to fuel our own national policies without any reciprocity or sharing of the cost, then the policy bears concerning resemblance to past colonial policies, with unequal economic relations leading to a new flavour of colonialism and western hegemony.
Many of the proposed GNDs pay lip service to these problems of neo-colonialism and the need to overcome it. Here in the UK, Labour’s proposed iteration of the GND aims towards
“Supporting developing countries’ efforts to challenge unjust, neo-colonial and unsustainable economic structures and ensuring the Green New Deal does not replicate these, particularly in the extractive sector”
But what are these groups actually doing toward this goal? Is it even possible to overcome this disturbingly colonial slant with individual policies and ideas set out by nations in the Global North? I would argue no. What is needed to make a GND truly ‘green’ and truly equitable is the total rethinking of trade relations, and a global effort is the only thing that will make this really possible, through international policy bodies with equitable negotiations. If GNDs with national boundaries are difficult to extract from the mires of neo-colonialism, we need to change our tack now.
Climate change is not national. It does not respect state boundaries, and it cannot be compartmentalised into neat spatial packages. When we do this, we risk shunting the problems onto a different country’s shoulders in a fundamentally neo-colonial fashion. Whilst countries like the UK, which have added so disproportionately to the climate crisis, ought to be taking a leading and funding role in this, it cannot be done with unilateral policies. What is needed in international, unified action: perhaps, a global Green New Deal.
If you’re interested in finding out more about the problems of extractivism and a Global Green New Deal, then head to the Green Week discussion held online this evening. It can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/2704712759746065/?active_tab=about
Want to read more?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/08/left-climate-injustice-green-new-deal
https://newsocialist.org.uk/bolivia-gnd/
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-12-10/a-green-new-deal-between-whom-and-for-what/
Written by: Bridget Tiller, Geography 3rd Year
Photo credit: TJ K. on Unsplash
Disclaimer: THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS OR OPINIONS OF COMPASS MAGAZINE AS A WHOLE OR THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY.