Green Colonialism in the Energy transition

The clean energy transition represents a critical shift from fossil fuels to renewable sources, such as solar, wind, and hydropower. Yet, the global rush for renewable energy infrastructure and minerals essential for green technologies, including bauxite, copper, lithium, and rare earth elements, has led to new forms of resource extraction that echo colonial patterns of territorial and resource appropriation. Current foreign direct investment (FDI) patterns in green energy risk reproduce historical injustices against Indigenous peoples and local communities. International investment law, designed to facilitate capital flows for climate mitigation, risks enabling a form of “green colonialism” where foreign corporations develop renewable projects on Indigenous lands without meaningful consultation or consent. This paradox is exemplified in Arctic wind energy projects developed without Indigenous communities’ free, prior, and informed consent, and in bauxite mining disputes where Indigenous Adivasis in India faced expropriation of tribal lands for aluminium production, a key material for solar panels and wind turbines. When communities resist, as in the cancelled investment in India, companies invoke international arbitration mechanisms that prioritize investor rights over Indigenous sovereignty. Despite theoretical condemnation, terra nullius, the legal fiction of “territory without an owner”, persists in contemporary green energy development, perpetuating colonial patterns under the guise of climate action. The contemporary application of this logic treats Indigenous territories as “empty” spaces available for green development, disregarding existing Indigenous land governance systems. This green colonialism undermines the very communities most vulnerable to climate change while perpetuating power imbalances in the name of environmental protection. Only by adopting temporally aware approaches that recognize Indigenous sovereignty and implement robust safeguards can international law dismantle colonial logic and ensure that the energy transition serves climate justice rather than reproducing historical patterns of territorial appropriation and resource extraction.