Opinion: Renewable energy needs accountability to end green colonialism

It might seem odd to hear Greta Thunberg, champion of climate action, protest against a wind farm, but that is what recently happened in Oslo. Thunberg is just the latest to protest against “green colonialism” — environmentally friendly projects that usurp the rights of Indigenous, traditional, afro-descendants, and other local peoples. There is not yet sufficient attention to assure that communities surrounding renewable energy projects, as well as societies as a whole, see benefits from those investments, including access to the electricity generated. Achieving net zero should not come at the expense of the rights and well-being of poorer, rural communities. Governance challenges threatening to undermine sustainable energy shifts include contestation of land rights, arguments over benefit sharing, and disputes over community consent. We need greater accountability for green energy, and the good news is that there are practical steps that can be taken immediately. We also need a bigger rethink on how we can better address all dimensions of justice during this transition. In the rush to scale renewable energy capacity around the globe, there is an inherent tension between speed, rights, and assured benefits. In the United States, there are live complaints about the delays in securing permissions for renewables projects. But in country contexts as varied as Colombia, Tunisia, and Malaysia, we are seeing the opposite: land grabs, Indigenous populations excluded from their territory, corruption, and significant rent-seeking around wind and solar projects. The international community has woken up to risks around the supply of green minerals that are vital for the manufacture of wind turbines, solar panels, energy storage capacity, and new transmission infrastructures, but those concerns are as much fueled by national security concerns and great power competition as by development motivations. We should not repeat the extractive model for development that we have seen play out in high-carbon industries over the past century. Green energy-related production in low-income contexts should not just serve the clean energy needs of the wealthy and powerful. There are positive lessons from other sectors that can be applied as a starting point to avoid further green colonialism. The challenge is to find the political will and resources to take action. Where is Norway’s equivalent of its Oil for Development program for renewables? Where is the relevant multilateral development bank technical assistance or International Finance Corporation-specific guidance to match that on other sectors such as mining? Where is the pooled fund on governance of the energy transition to match the number of funds emerging for climate justice such as the Climate Justice Resilience Fund? Here are the initial five steps that development groups can take to strengthen accountability in the renewables sector: 1. Partner with governments, industry, and civil society groups to better understand the political economy behind green energy development and bring a systemic lens to sector development. This would mean looking explicitly at the distributional effects of different paths toward decarbonizing energy systems and identifying winners and losers for these different pathways. Understanding the political economy will clarify the ways in which renewable energy investments drive changes that are both just and unjust. 2. Support the development of updated policy guidance for the design and implementation of renewables projects, including elements such as permitting, revenue sharing, shared land use, energy access, decommissioning, and back policy with sufficient investment in regulatory capacity at the national and subnational level to assure that rules are followed. 3. Strengthen support for local communities to understand and defend their rights and to secure benefits from renewable investments. We can build network infrastructure within civil society to provide solidarity, share tactics, and align accountability demands across the countries where green energy firms operate and are headquartered. A campaign to demand a fair share of extractive industries' revenues took off in the 2000s. Now, Publish What You Pay is a coalition of over a thousand member organizations in over 50 countries. An equivalent network to influence renewable investments for the public good could be a game-changer. Efforts to expand the remit of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative to cover renewables could galvanize such a network. 4. Clarify and promote good practices for the industry, such as committing to the framework of free and prior informed consent for any new projects. In high-income markets, such as Australia, energy companies are tapping the expertise of community engagement experts from the mining sector. We need such expertise deployed around the globe. We need greater peer pressure to uphold good practices, as the International Council of Mining and Metals encourages within the mining sector. Why not look to create the equivalent for green energy producers? 5. Increase investor awareness and strengthen checks to minimize environmental, social, and governance risks, building on hard-won experience with other large land-use investments, such as mining and agribusiness. Investors, too, have a responsibility to assure that the burden of costs does not fall on local communities Taking these steps can help address some of the immediate risks in scaling renewable energy production. But, in parallel, let us expand the conversation — and our imaginations — on what a truly just transition can and should look like.