R8 A5: Green Extractivism is Not a Climate Solution

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 civil and customary organisations
continue to resist ongoing colonialism, human rights abuses (Amnesty
International, 2021), genocidal violence (Brundige et al., 2003; United
Liberation Movement for West Papua, 2023), and the extractive exploitation and
ecocide of their ancestral lands (United Liberation Movement for West Papua,
n.d.). Since 2016, Indonesia and the EU have negotiated the EU–Indonesia
Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), with pressure on Indonesia
to lift raw mineral export restrictions and privatise its public energy sector,
without consulting West Papuan Indigenous communities.

A new surge of violence in one of the world’s most war-torn regions has renewed
attention to the historically overexploited peoples and territories of central
Africa, particularly in eastern Congo (Global Conflict Tracker, 2025). This
resource-rich area has been mined for centuries by Western companies and their
subsidiaries. Congo produces 70% of the world’s cobalt, a key mineral for the
batteries driving Europe’s energy transition. With over 200 ethnic groups, it is
also one of the most ethnically diverse countries. Amnesty International and
local reports document forced evictions, sexual violence, arson, and beatings
linked to the expansion of multinational mining operations. These abuses
disproportionately harm local communities, undermining their rights and
livelihoods (Amnesty International, 2023). Meanwhile, the wealth generated
largely leaves the country or is concentrated among a small elite. Though
sustainable sourcing standards have been introduced, they are rarely enforced
and remain riddled with loopholes (Deberdt & Le Billon, 2022).

This dynamic of dependency extends beyond the Global South: Europe’s
peripheries, including poorer and rural regions within the EU, are also
exploited to fuel 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 is enabling a new wave of extractivism, with lithium mining
projects threatening ecologically rich and culturally significant rural areas.
Backed by climate and innovation discourses, these projects sideline local
opposition and endanger traditional livelihoods. In Covas do Barroso, plans for
Europe’s largest open-pit lithium mine threaten community displacement and
ecosystem destruction (EJAtlas, n.d.). The grassroots movement Unidxs em Defesa
de Covas do Barroso is actively resisting this green extractivism, defending a
vision of territory grounded in care, heritage, and ecological interdependence
(Antonelli & Sini, 2024).

Furthermore, it is of utmost importance that the effects of raw minerals mining can have on the ecosystems as a whole are recognised, specifically in regards to the pollution of above-ground and underground waters, the flora and fauna. The practice of "green" extractivism can have amplified effects when mining is conducted in inhabited agricultural areas, and especially when minerals such as lithium, are being mined from ore rocks (Đorđević et al, 2024).
Specific consideration is needed when mining of raw minerals is planned in biodiversity rich, water rich agricultural areas, being that it leads to a) ecocide (extintion of existing classes of flora and fauna, deforestation), b) forced displacement of local communities, and c) loss of jobs of those who`s primary income comes from agricultural work (Đorđević et al, 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 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.

• 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.

We as FYEG 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.

Footnotes and references

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 (Bruna,
2022).

² The core–periphery model of imperialism explains how wealth, power, and
resources are concentrated in dominant “core” countries, while “peripheral” ones
are kept economically dependent, exploited for raw materials and labour, and
structurally blocked from equal development.

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