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R8: Green Extractivism is not a Climate Solution

The following table describes the status, the proposer and other metadata of this motion.
Metadata of the motion
Consultation:FYEG General Assembly 2025
Agenda item:7. Resolutions
Proposer:DWARS (Netherlands), GEV (Giovani Europeisti Verdi)
Status:Published
Submitted:04/22/2025, 22:30

Motion text

Green Extractivism is Not a Climate Solution

Standing With Resistance Against Extractivism in the EU and
Beyond

The energy transition fostered by the European Green Deal is presented as a win-
win pathway to combat climate change and sustain economic growth through the
deployment of low-carbon technologies (European Commission, 2019). However, the
energy transition is a materials transition. Starting from supply of raw
materials for technology manufacture, EU demand for rare earth metals is
projected to grow six-fold by 2030 and seven-fold by 2050 compared to 2020,
reaching over 3 million tonnes in a low-demand scenario and nearly 5 million
tonnes in a high-demand scenario (Carrara et al., 2023).

While replacing a fossil-based energy system with a renewables-based one is a
necessity and a historical responsibility for the EU, the push to secure
resources for the European Green Deal remains rooted in a neoliberal capitalist
logic of climate reductionism, prioritising CO2 emissions while overlooking
deeper socio-ecological injustices.

Considering that

  • mineral extraction comes with severe environmental, social, and health
    impacts;
  • more than 90% of the current raw material supply to Europe comes from
    outside the Eurozone (European Parliament and Council, 2024);
  • more than half of the Strategic Partners for Raw Materials are Europe ex-
    colonies (Raw Materials Diplomacy, n.d.);
  • more than half of energy transition mineral projects are located on or
    near Indigenous People’s lands (Owen et al., 2022);

We conclude that the EU is transitioning towards a green economy relying on an
extractivist model1, and is systematically externalising the costs of the green
transition outside of Europe, as well as to its ‘peripheries’2.With this
resolution, we aim to amplify the demands of movements who have been resisting
this exploitative model inside and outside of Europe.

Recognising the myriad of resistance movements, we want to bring to attention a
few examples. Indigenous Peoples in northern Argentina are resisting lithium
mining, challenging green extractivism driven by the Global North’s energy
transition (Argento & Puente, 2023). The "lithium triangle" (Argentina, Bolivia,
Chile) supplies about 85% of the EU’s lithium imports (Murguia & Obaya, 2024),
with extraction encroaching on Indigenous lands and protected areas. Lithium
mining generates waste, alters landscapes, contaminates water, and harms local
ecosystems. Most critically, its high water consumption worsens scarcity in arid
regions, threatening subsistence farming and pastoralism (Voskoboynik &
Andreucci, 2021).

West Papuan tribes, political groups, and customary and civil society
organisations are still resisting active colonialism, human rights abuses
(Amnesty International, 2021), genocidal violence (Brundige et al., 2003; United
Liberation Movement for West Papua, 2023) and have been contesting an extractive
exploitation of their ancestral land (United Liberation Movement for West Papua,
n.d.). Indonesia and the European Union have been negotiating the EU-Indonesia
Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) trade agreement since 2016,
pressuring the latter to remove restrictions on raw mineral exports and
privatise the public energy sector. West Papuan Indigenous communities have not
been consulted.

A new violent flare-up in what has been one of the most warn-torn regions for
last twenty years has brought renewed attention to the historically
overexploited area and peoples of central Africa in Congo (Global Conflict
Tracker, 2025). The east of the country is a particularly resource-dense area,
that has been mined and exploited by Western companies and its subsidiaries for
centuries. 70% of the world’s cobalt, a crucial mineral for the development of
batteries severely needed to power the energy transition Europe is currently on,
is produced in Congo. It is also an incredibly ethnically diverse country, with
over 200 ethnic groups. Reports by Amnesty International and local entities
document forced evictions, sexual assaults, arson, and beatings related to the
expansion of multinational mining companies. These transgressions
disproportionately impact local communities, eroding their rights and means of
subsistence (Amnesty International, 2023). Furthermore, all of the wealth
generated from this extraction flees the country, or remains in the hands of a
small local elite. There have been some efforts made, like the introduction of
sustainable sourcing standards, but in reality these standards are rarely
applied, and still have enormous loopholes (Deberdt & Le Billon, 2022).

However, not only Global South countries are kept in a position of dependency.
European ‘peripheries’, as well as poorer and rural areas within the EU, are
also being exploited for growth in the core:

Serbia is witnessing a resurgence of green extractivism through the EU-backed
push for lithium mining, despite widespread public resistance that previously
halted such projects (Santos, 2024). Behind closed-door agreements and
technocratic rhetoric, the government advances a top-down agenda that sidelines
affected communities, undermines democratic participation, and replicates
authoritarian patterns of resource exploitation (Markovic, 2024). In Portugal,
the green transition masks a new wave of extractivism, with lithium mining
projects threatening ecologically rich and culturally significant rural regions.
Framed by industry and state actors through climate and innovation discourses,
these projects override local opposition and imperil traditional livelihoods.
For example, in Covas do Barroso, Portugal, a designated Globally Important
Agricultural Heritage System, plans for Europe’s largest open-pit lithium mine
threaten to displace communities and devastate ecosystems (EJAtlas, n.d.).
Despite fierce local resistance, the government has advanced the project,
granting land access to the mining company Savannah Resources. The grassroots
movement Unidxs em Defesa de Covas do Barroso opposes this green extractivism,
defending a vision of territory rooted in care, heritage, and ecological
interdependence (Antonelli & Sini, 2024).

Thus, concerned that

  • a greening and security discourse in the European transition agenda hides
    its reliance on resource appropriation from the Global South and the
    peripheries of Europe;
  • mineral extraction is framed as essential for and compatible with
    sustainable development and climate change mitigation;
  • only 5 Member States of the EU have ratified the ILO169 Indigenous and
    Tribal Peoples Convention, protecting the rights of Indigenous and Tribal
    Peoples, including the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent to
    their relocation;
  • the Critical Raw Materials Act limits the rights of Indigenous peoples and
    communities affected by extraction projects to consultations, ignoring the
    principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent;
  • current trade agreements impose an unsustainable neo-liberal European
    model of development based on infinite economic growth, privatisation of
    public sectors, nature commodification, and primacy of European import
    desires over local and national needs and affected communities’ rights,
    while also displacing and disregarding non-Eurocentric knowledge systems
    and worldviews;

Emphasising again the arguments made in previous FYEG resolutions “Indigenous
rights are human rights!”, and “A Degrowth Transition Towards Post-Growth
Economies” and in FYEG’s political platform that

  • All trade agreements by the EU and by European countries must respect the
    rights of the the indigenous communities directly or indirectly affected
    in the counterpart and possibly in neighbouring states. This must entail
    respect for ILO Convention 169 alongside core human rights conventions.
    Furthermore, these indigenous communities must be consulted and
    represented in the discussions and evaluation of the agreement either by a
    representative or, where possible, a collective or council representing
    them;
  • The devastation caused by neoliberal capitalism cannot be solved by the
    same expansionist principles with a green facade. A global political
    perspective is essential to address ecological injustices and the unequal
    distribution of impacts. This includes ending resource appropriation from
    the Global South by the Global North and debt cancellation, alongside
    urgent decarbonization by countries with the greatest historical
    emissions. Ignoring these issues can lead to eco-fascism, where wealthy
    nations externalise damage and collapse to poorer regions.
  • Degrowth is a demand for effective decolonization. Countries in the global
    south should be free to organise their resources and labour around meeting
    human needs rather than around servicing Northern growth. Historically,
    the industrial growth in Europe and the subsequent expansion and
    industrialisation of its colonies were significantly facilitated by the
    pattern of appropriating raw materials, natural resources, and labour from
    the Global South through what has been named as ecological unequal
    exchange. Even following the withdrawal of colonial troops, the
    fundamental structure of the colonial economy endures, sustaining growth
    in the North through the continued appropriation, exploitation, and
    oppression of the South.

We as Federation of Young European Greens call upon

  • the EU to question and move beyond a development model based on infinite
    economic growth, privatisation of commons, nature commodification, and
    thus extractivism;
  • the EU to recognise and interact with different, non-extractive ways of
    relating to nature stemming from non-Eurocentric worldviews;
  • the Greens/EFA to recognise the systemic plunder of resources from the
    Global South and the peripheries of Europe that is still being promoted by
    the European energy transition and recognise its unequal distribution of
    costs and benefits;
  • the Greens/EFA to support the demands of resistance and grassroot
    movements such as those in West Papua, the Democratic Republic of the
    Congo, Serbia and Portugal;
  • Member States to address historical injustices by attending and committing
    to demands of redistribution and reparation;
  • all Member States to ratify the ILO169 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples
    Convention;
  • the European Commission to integrate the principles of Free, Prior and
    Informed consent for Indigenous and other affected communities into every
    trade agreement negotiation with external partners.

1 Extractivism is a model of overexploitation where local communities and
environments bear the damage without benefitting, leading to ecosystem
depletion, harm to human health, and the erosion of knowledge through structural
violence, particularly dispossession (Ojeda et al., 2022). It refers to labour
appropriation through exploitative economic, social, and ecological relations,
rooted in colonial legacies, rather than small-scale mining practices (Vela-
Almeida & Karlsen, 2023; Dunlap & Jakobsen, 2019; Bruna, 2022).

2 The core-periphery model of imperialism explains how wealth, power, and
resources are concentrated in dominant "core" countries, while "periphery"
countries remain economically dependent, exploited for raw materials and labour,
and structurally prevented from developing on equal terms.

References

Amnesty International. (2021, June 1). Indonesia: Civil and political rights’
violations In Papua and West Papua: List of issues prior to reporting (LOIPR)
for Indonesia CCPR Session 129, June-July 2020 - Amnesty International.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa21/2445/2020/en/

Antonelli, D., & Sini, G. (2024, February 27). Covas do Barroso: Local
Resistance to Europe’s Lithium Race. Green European Journal.
https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/covas-do-barroso-local-resistance-to-
europes-lithium-race/

Argento, M., & Puente, F. (2023, August 16). A Cross-Sectoral Uprising against
Extractivism. Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung.
https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/50891/a-cross-sectoral-uprising-against-
extractivism

Brundige, E., King, W., Vahali, P., Vladeck, S., Yuan, X., Allard K. Lowenstein
International Human Rights Clinic, & Yale Law School. (2003). Indonesian Human
Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of the Law of Genocide to the History
of Indonesian Control. Allard K Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic,
Yale Law School.

Carrara, S., Bobba, S., Blagoeva, D., Alves, D. P., Cavalli, A., Georgitzikis,
K., Grohol, M., Itul, A., Kuzov, T., Latunussa, C., Lyons, L., Malano, G.,
Maury, T., Prior, A. A., Somers, J., Telsnig, T., Veeh, C., Wittmer, D., Black,
C., . . . Christou, M. (2023). Supply chain analysis and material demand
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Deberdt, R., & Le Billon, P. (2022). The Green Transition in Context—Cobalt
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EJAtlas. (n.d.). EJAtlas - Global Atlas of Environmental Justice. Retrieved
March 10, 2025, from https://ejatlas.org/

European Commission. (2019). Communication From The Commission To The European
Parliament, The European Council, The Council, The European Economic And Social
Committee And The Committee Of The Regions: The European Green Deal. In EUR-Lex.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:b828d165-1c22-11ea-8c1f-
01aa75ed71a1.0002.02/DOC_1&format=PDF

European Parliament and Council. (2024). Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024 establishing a framework
for ensuring a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials and
amending Regulations (EU) No 168/2013, (EU) 2018/858, (EU) 2018/1724 and (EU)
2019/1020. In EUR-lex. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L_202401252

Global Conflict Tracker (2025). Violence Democratic Republic
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Markovic, I. (2024). The South of the North: Green extractivism in the energy
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Murguia, D., & Obaya, M. (2024). Exploring conditions for just lithium mining in
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Owen, J. R., Kemp, D., Lechner, A. M., Harris, J., Zhang, R., & Lèbre, É.
(2022). Energy transition minerals and their intersection with land-connected
peoples. Nature Sustainability, 6(2), 203–211. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-
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Raw materials diplomacy. (n.d.). European Commission. https://single-market-
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materials-diplomacy_en

Santos, S. F. (2024, August 11). Serbia: Thousands join Belgrade protest against
lithium mining. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cged9qgwrvyo

United Liberation Movement for West Papua. (2023, November 17). Genocide is
happening in West Papua. https://www.ulmwp.org/benny-wenda-genocide-is-
happening-in-west-papua#start

United Liberation Movement for West Papua. (n.d.). Green State Vision.
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Voskoboynik, D. M., & Andreucci, D. (2021). Greening extractivism: Environmental
discourses and resource governance in the ‘Lithium Triangle.’ Environment and
Planning. E, Nature and Space, 5(2), 787–809.
https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486211006345

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  • Teun Boswinkel (Jong Groen)
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