A thought experiment that dismantles the illusion of a post-carbon utopia, revealing how inequality, conflict, and the race to control new resources may deepen existing power imbalances in our pursuit of a greener world.
Imagine a planet without coal-smudged skies. In this reality, we never find otters covered in oil spills, the air is so clean that pollution is a concept of the distant past, and electricity flows clean and silently. This vision of a world fully powered by renewable energy might seem like the ultimate answer to our climate crisis. However, beneath the promise of this green revolution lies an unsettling truth: a post-carbon future might not be a post-conflict one.
THE RESOURCE NEXUS PERSPECTIVE
The concept of resource nexus thinking reveals how deeply interconnected different resources are when it comes to our energy systems. When envisioning a world powered entirely by renewables, we often focus on the carbon offset by solar panels and wind turbines. But the reality of the matter is the fact that resources like energy, water, land, and materials (minerals) have a unique relationship with each other in all energy systems.
Not all resources are created equally, and when it comes to the geographical distribution of these resources, they follow a very similar pattern, regardless of their fossil or renewable nature. For example, a city powering itself with clean energy may be drawing resources from mining operations thousands of miles away, effectively exporting its environmental burden to communities with less political power. Thus, it could also be postulated that our green energy revolution risks creating new forms of geographical inequality and resource competition that undermine the very sustainability it seeks to achieve. Replacing fossil fuels with renewables addresses carbon emissions but also creates new pressure points. To address this renewable nirvana, it would not just mean swapping the fuel source but changing energy infrastructures and social systems.
THE NEW GEOGRAPHY OF POWER
While oil and gas reserves concentrate power in specific regions, renewable resources have the appearance of an even distribution – every country has some combination of sun, wind and water. However, this assumption is not that simple.
Renewable energy is a very zonal entity – the requirements are standard, and areas need to be consistent with strong winds, solar irradiance, or optimal hydroelectric conditions. These zones could have a high potential to become the new strategic territories. One scenario that might happen is that countries rich in renewable potential may find themselves in similar positions to today’s oil exporters. At the same time, nations dependent on energy imports face new forms of energy and resource insecurity.
There is a need for a lot of new infrastructure to support this transition, of course. Transmission lines, storage facilities, and manufacturing centres – all need to be built. Countries that can afford to switch to this infrastructure with their own financial means might hold a geographic dominance, and countries that might require investment from other countries might not have their own agency.
Another conflict may arise for critical minerals that renewables run on, for example, lithium for batteries, cobalt for storage, and rare earth elements for wind turbines and electric vehicles. Very much like fossil fuels, they come from the earth, but unlike fossil fuels, they are not burned but transformed. This inequality is already happening. In Indonesia, entire ecosystems are being cleared to access nickel for the world’s growing electric vehicle fleets, and in Chile’s Atacama Desert, salt flats in indigenous communities are being drained for lithium.
GREEN COLONIALISM AND ENERGY TRANSITION
When nations with a higher financial parity (as well as big corporations) secure access to renewable resources and materials in developing countries, it often mimics the same extractive relationships that characterised the fossil fuel era. This exactly leads to the beginning of ‘green colonialism’.
This manifests in multiple ways, for example, through land grabbing for large-scale solar plants, windmill projects, or biomass projects, displacing local communities and traditional land uses. Plainly put, this energy transition has a risk of perpetuating colonial patterns of resource extraction, where wealthy nations capture the economic benefits, leaving the nations rich with natural resources barren and with high socio-environmental risks.
THE JUST TRANSITION PREROGATIVE
Systems thinking would reveal that the transition to renewable energy is not merely a technical challenge but a complex social transformation that affects every aspect of human and natural systems. A just transition framework that recognises how we manage the shift to clean energy will determine whether we create a more equitable and sustainable world or replace one form of injustice with another.
A just transition framework requires us to consider the full system of impacts from renewable energy deployment. This means examining not only the environmental benefits of clean energy but also the social costs of resource extraction, infrastructure development, and economic disruption. It demands that we address the needs of communities whose livelihoods depend on fossil fuel industries while also ensuring that the benefits of clean energy reach those most affected by climate change.
As we stand at the threshold of the renewable energy transition, we have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of our fossil fuel era and create energy systems that serve both human needs and environmental sustainability.
This opportunity will only be realised if we approach the energy transition through systems thinking, acknowledging both its transformative potential and its inherent risks.
Raida A. K. Reza is a Doctoral Researcher at United Nations University’s Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources (UNU-FLORES), Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER), and Technische Universität Dresden.
