Over the past few years, the phrase “just transition” has travelled across climate policy corridors, from international negotiations to national energy plans. It suggests a promise: of fairness, of repair, of moving away from fossil fuels without leaving anyone behind. But beneath the appealing rhetoric lies a deeper unease, particularly in the Global South. Who is defining what’s “just”? And more importantly, who benefits? In this article, Madhuresh Kumar continues from the questions raised in an earlier article which brought forth the arguments from an earlier webinar.
A Just Transition or a Just Cover?
This fourth webinar in the series organised by the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA) thematic group on ‘Energy and Alternatives’, brings the conversation focus firmly to the African continent. The panel, moderated by Vasna Ramasar, featured powerful interventions from Alex Hotz, Hamza Hamouchene, Hibist Kassa, and Muhammed Lamin Saidykhan. Their discussion laid bare the structural realities that often get papered over in glossy reports and techno-solutionist agendas. What we are witnessing, they argued, is not a transition away from extractivism, but a repackaged form of it. One that wraps itself in green, but still centers profit, control, and dispossession.
As Hamza Hamouchene, Arab Region Programme Coordinator at the Transnational Institute (TNI) put it bluntly in the opening of the session:
“We cannot speak about colonialism – green or otherwise – dismantling it or decolonising, while turning a blind eye to the genocide currently taking place in Palestine. Nor can we ignore the many wars happening across the African continent, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Sudan, many of which are directly linked to the control and extraction of resources, particularly critical raw materials needed for the so-called green transition.”
The discussion built on the previous session, which had already raised critical concerns about the just transition becoming a “just cover”, an alibi for the expansion of capitalist systems and global supply chains under the pretext of climate action. The second conversation added an important geographical and political lens, grounding the debate in African contexts. Across the continent, from the DRC to South Africa, large-scale energy and infrastructure projects are being pushed in the name of climate goals. Yet, as multiple speakers highlighted, these projects often bypass the very communities they claim to serve. People are not at the centre of these plans; they are at best an afterthought, at worst a disposable obstacle.
In her opening remarks, Vasna Ramasar, Member, Facilitation Team, GTA reminded us of the importance of looking beyond the headlines and into the systems beneath:
“We need to locate the just transition within the broader colonial-capitalist project. Otherwise, we risk replicating the same structures of inequality, just in a greener form.”
The urgency is clear. As mineral-rich lands are carved up for lithium and cobalt; as wind and solar farms rise where pastoralists once grazed; as new debts are incurred to fund infrastructure meant for export markets; Africa is being reinserted into the global economy not as a sovereign agent, but as a supplier of transition commodities. This is how it has been treated in the past and the ‘new’ paradigm follows the same neo-colonial project.
This article traces the key arguments and exchanges from the webinar, foregrounding the critical insights and lived experiences shared by African activists, researchers, and organisers. It explores how Africa’s role in the so-called “green future” is being shaped by global interests, compromised governance, and persistent inequalities, and how movements are responding with defiance, creativity, and hope.
Green Colonialism Reloaded: The New Scramble for Africa’s Resources and Dignity
In many ways, the so-called green transition has simply shifted the coordinates of the old colonial project. The webinar’s speakers were unflinching in their critique: Africa is not transitioning; it is being transitioned. And the contours of this process look disturbingly familiar. Where once gold, ivory, and rubber were extracted, now it is lithium, cobalt, and hydrogen.
Energy and climate justice in North Africa, presentation by Hamza Hamouchene
Hamza Hamouchene drew direct lines between past and present:
“What is being framed as a climate solution is in fact another form of colonial extraction; this time in the name of decarbonisation. We are not seeing a move away from extractivism, but an intensification of it.”
He added the response to the climate crisis is being determined by the actors whose analysis and diagnosis is fundamentally biased and ignores class, race, gender and power – marking it a new form of ‘environmental orientalism.’
“These are international neoliberal actors – EU agencies, global financial institutions like the World Bank, and international development agencies including GIZ (Germany), USAID (USA), AFD (France), and others. These actors are active across our regions, not just in policymaking and funding, but also in knowledge production and even in shaping the thinking of the next generation of climate and environmental activists.
Throughout the discussion, speakers gave vivid examples from across the continent. The DRC, rich in cobalt and copper, is witnessing a surge in mining deals, often led by multinational companies and sanctioned by elites. Morocco and Western Sahara are rife with the forcible land acquisitions for solar parks and green projects. In South Africa, the Just Energy Transition Implementation Plan (JET-IP) was flagged as a case in point. Alex Hotz of WoMin Alliance pointed out that while billions are flowing in, they are largely being used to build infrastructure that benefits private corporations, not public goods like transport, schools, or healthcare:
“We are building infrastructure for private companies to profit from, not for communities. This isn’t a people’s transition: it’s a private one.”
Beyond the Western powers, China, the UAE, Russia, and even newer players like Türkiye are part of this renewed resource grab, often framed as “partnerships” but structured in ways that entrench dependency and deepen debt. Hibist Kassa cited the example of the Zimbabwe’s Bikita Lithium mining where Rio Tinto and BP were replaced by a Chinese company after covid forced it to shut down, but that was not an act of south-south solidarity but a continued reproduction of the inequalities and environmental degradation, dispossession and land conflict.
The speakers invited the audience to look beyond simplistic binaries of “North vs South” and ask: who in the South is benefiting? The complicity of African elites was a recurring theme. Vasna Ramasar underscored this when she noted:
“It’s not just external forces, we have our own actors on the continent who are enabling this model, often in the name of progress.”
This scramble is not just about minerals. Industrial agriculture, seed monopolies, and so-called climate-smart farming initiatives are all part of the green colonialism. The discussion drew attention to the colonisation of African food systems and the marginalisation of agroecological alternatives. The control of seeds, for instance, is being reshaped by corporate patents and GMO regimes, undermining local autonomy and knowledge.
Alex Hotz noted that the debate on green colonialism tends to stay within energy and mining sectors:
“But we must also talk about the colonisation of agriculture and food systems; how seed sovereignty and food justice are being compromised in this transition.”
The argument that participatory processes and African states developing their industries and processing capacities can be a step in the right direction, but Hibist Kassa reminded us that,
“The African Union’s Green Mineral Strategy, and Zimbabwe’s attempts to process lithium domestically rather than exporting raw materials, do mark a break from the extractive status quo. But they still operate within the same development logic, one where communities lack the right to say no, where land injustices remain unaddressed, and where ecological devastation is glossed over in the name of economic gain.”
What emerges is a picture of a continent caught in a double bind pushed to supply the world’s clean energy future while being denied the sovereignty to chart its own path. Green colonialism, as it was described here, is not simply a metaphor. It is a material reality, rooted in ongoing exploitation, debt traps, and unequal global power.
States Without Sovereignty: Debt and the Hollowing of the Postcolonial Project
A key thread that wove through the webinar was the crisis of the postcolonial African state: its capacity, its capture, and its complicity. As speaker after speaker reminded the audience, we cannot understand the geopolitics of green colonialism without grappling with the internal contradictions of governance in Africa. Muhammed Lamin reminded everyone that
“Africa has been divided into 55 nation-states, and this fragmentation severely weakens our ability to bargain collectively. Despite holding nearly 40% of the world’s critical minerals necessary for global decarbonisation, we remain disorganised and undercut by internal divisions, corruption, and poor leadership. This disunity is being exploited by the very actors responsible for our predicament.”
Hibist Kassa a researcher at Institute for Environmental Futures, University of Leicester further added that
“Decades of liberalisation have eroded the very capacity of states to govern, to regulate, or to even monitor what is happening in extractive sectors. What we are left with is a hollowed-out shell, states that no longer govern, but merely rule.”
She cited how the African Mining Vision, once imagined as a progressive policy framework, has seen little meaningful implementation. Tools for consultation, such as Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), remains largely symbolic. Even well-meaning policies often get hijacked by global capital and elite interests, as seen in the EU’s recent efforts to fund a lithium corridor between South Africa and the DRC, effectively sidestepping local decision-making.
“Even when there are attempts at cooperation between countries, like DRC and Zambia, these are overtaken by external actors who fund the process and steer it to serve their own interests,” she noted.
Impact of global capital and mining projects in Africa, presentation by Hibist Kassa
Alex Hotz echoed the concern and reminded the audience again that,
“Over 600 million people in Africa still live without access to electricity. And yet, we are expected to decarbonize, not for our own benefit, but to serve the Global North’s energy transition.”
She warned that the Just Energy Transition Implementation Plan (JET-IP) in South Africa is being executed in ways that will lock the country into more borrowing, debt and deeper dependence, as is being witnessed in the region of in Mpumalanga: “
Africans are being asked to take on debt for a transition that we are not even benefiting from. It is being used to build infrastructure that primarily serves private interests, not basic public needs such as schools, hospitals or affordable and sustainable public transport. It’s a scam; one dressed in green.”
These observations resonated strongly with earlier webinars in the series, which critiqued how “just transitions” often mask a continuity of neoliberal development: market-first models, top-down planning, and the exclusion of frontline communities. Here, the conversation rooted those critiques squarely in Africa, showing how states are often neither willing nor able to negotiate in the interests of their people.
There was also a clear recognition that the problem is not just about capacity but also about political will. Many of the continent’s ruling elites are deeply embedded in global circuits of capital. As Vasna Ramasar observed:
“We must be honest: our states are not innocent. They are captured. And many of our elites are complicit in green colonialism.”
Alex’s example of the South African governments Economic Recovery and Development Plan has emerged as the way to capture thousands of hectares of community land for the green hydrogen plants or lithium mines as witnessed in Northern Cape. She reminded that,
“While South Africans are saddled with frequent power cuts, over 80% of the energy produced is designated for export, to refuel ships and planes, to serve the needs of the North. It neither solves South Africa’s energy crisis nor brings light to our homes.”
This raises the uncomfortable but necessary question: if the state cannot be relied on to deliver a just transition, where do we turn? The responses came not in despair, but in a clear call for movement-building, resistance, and the creation of new democratic spaces from below.
Strategies of Resistance: Building Power, Reclaiming Futures
As the webinar drew towards its conclusion, the conversations shifted to discussing resistance and alternatives. If green colonialism is the diagnosis, what are the strategies of resistance? What are the political, cultural, and movement-building responses emerging from the African continent?
Hamza was emphatic that the capitalist system feeding the Global North must be dismantled, and the walls between movements broken down. He added,
“People are never passive victims. When faced with injustice, whether environmental, economic or political, people resist. They organise. They rise up, again and again. Yes, they may be repressed. They may be defeated temporarily. But they do not remain silent. This is what we have witnessed in Palestine and so many other places world over.”
Muhammed Lamin Saidykhan of CAN International offered a powerful summation:
“They’ve divided us into gender activists, climate activists, land activists. But without unifying our strength, power, and expertise, we will not be able to change this. We must organise aggressively and deliberately. That means sharpening our analysis, building cross-border alliances, and reclaiming our sovereignty, not just politically, but economically and ecologically. Only then can we begin to shape our own future, rather than being sacrificed for someone else’s transition.”
Speakers echoed the urgency of building alliances across struggles between trade unions, environmental movements, indigenous peoples, and peasant communities in this era of climate apartheid. Alex Hotz reminded the audience that this also means engaging with difficult questions particularly around jobs:
“If we’re not answering the real questions that peasants, workers and communities, that Lin Osami calls surplus populations, have about jobs, survival, and dignity, we will not win them to our vision of resistance. Without their full participation, any imagined transition will remain partial and disconnected. It is these lives which are marginalized and unable to reproduce their lives within the dominant system, that must matter the most in any transition.”
She underscored the need to move from siloed activism to holistic resistance, survival struggles linked with the broader structural questions like extractivism, agriculture, climate, debt, and public services. This includes reframing “green jobs” to ensure they are truly public, not private, and serve the social good.
Hibist Kassa emphasised that movements must also challenge knowledge hierarchies and technocratic governance:
“Expertise is often the quiet vehicle of dispossession. We need to question whose knowledge counts, and ensure that communities are not just included, but are shaping the terms of debate.”
She pointed to the Malian example of rejecting GMOs through popular deliberation as an important case to learn from, messy, complex, but rooted in collective agency.
And then came the broader call to reimagine and rebuild the postcolonial African state itself. Not as an extension of the colonial or neoliberal order, but as a site of popular power and pan-African solidarity.
“Our elites don’t govern,” Hibist quoted Ghanaian intellectual Kwame Ninsin, “they rule. And they rule in service of accumulation, not liberation.”
The webinar ended not with easy answers, but with the reminder to move beyond critique, towards strategy. The task ahead, as many speakers agreed, is to connect the dots: to learn from each other, to centre those most affected, and to reclaim the capacity to dream and build alternative futures.
Reclaiming Futures Beyond the Green Mask
This final webinar in the series brought into sharp focus a crucial truth: the so-called “just transition” is often anything but just. Instead of dismantling the structures that have long enabled colonial plunder, economic dependency, and ecological violence, it risks reinforcing them under a fresh coat of green paint.
Across the discussions, there was a clear warning that Africa’s future is being brokered in boardrooms and summits where African communities are absent. From the scramble for critical minerals to debt-driven transition plans, and from the silence around land and food systems to the erasure of indigenous and peasant knowledges and cultures; the speakers laid bare a sobering reality. The current energy transition is not a break from history, but a continuation of colonial and capitalist logic.
And yet, what rang through with equal clarity was that resistance is alive. Whether in popular struggles against mining and land grabs, trade union critiques of energy privatisation, or the cultural and intellectual defiance against technocratic rule, African voices are not only exposing the contradictions but also reclaiming agency. As Vasna Ramasar aptly closed:
“This is about recognising who’s at the table and who must be at the table. And it is also about realising that perhaps we need to build new tables altogether.”
Madhuresh Kumar is a member of the Facilitation Team of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives.
Watch the webinar recording here.
Teaser image credit: Author supplied.