Amandla! magazine | Issue 84

By Alex Hotz

A

S WE EMERGE FROM THE
pandemic, the impact of
Covid-19 has exacerbated
the converging social,
economic, and ecological crises,
which emerge from the systemic
and colonial legacy of extractivist
patriarchal capitalism. These crises
include climate, ecological and
accompanying humanitarian
distress; debt (sovereign and
individual); hunger; water
deprivation; war, civil conflict, and
associated displacements. These
crises layer one upon the other,
deepening existing crises and
introducing new crises.
The climate crisis is growing
rapidly, with the main costs being
carried by sub-Saharan Africa and
small island states. Heatwaves,
droughts, wildfires, cyclones,
storms, locust plagues, flooding,
sea level rise and other climate-
related disasters are becoming
increasingly commonplace. Since
2000, Mozambique, Madagascar,
Zimbabwe, and Kenya have been
among the hardest-hit countries
in the world. About 60 percent of African
people, the majority being women, depend
on agriculture and local food systems
to survive. So food insecurity levels are
intensifying, and livelihoods are at severe
risk.
Since 2005, the world has
experienced the ten hottest years in
recorded history, with temperatures
in Africa rising faster than the global
average. The sixth assessment report of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) projects that, when the
earth warms to median temperatures of
2°C above pre-industrial levels, Africa’s
median temperature will have risen by
3.6°C. Whilst Africa carries these climate
impacts, the continent has contributed just
3.9 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions.
This figure includes South Africa, which
ranks 13 in the world’s highest carbon
emitters.
Contemporary capital accumulation is
mostly based on “extractivism”. Under-
industrialised Global South countries
work as extractive “hubs” by supplying
raw materials, primary commodities,
cheap labour, and energy to industrialised
countries of the Global North. Extractivism
has contributed to deepening inequalities

within and among nations, the growing

power of transnational corporations, and

the erosion of sovereignty and decision-

making power in national contexts.

This model of development has

triggered complex changes in social

relations of gender, class, and ethnicity,

and fuelled extreme sexual violence against

and exploitation of women and young

girls in areas impacted by extractives.

WoMin has theorised that this violence

is profoundly embedded in the character

of extractivist capitalism, which violently

cuts down forests, forcibly relocates

communities, pollutes air and water

bodies, exploits and abuses low paid

workers, and brutally penetrates the earth

in search of its natural wealth.

The Global South pays

Cop26, like all other intergovernmental

negotiations on climate change, has

failed to achieve the deep binding carbon

emission cuts needed to stem climate

warming and guarantee the basis for life

on earth. Big corporations are promoting

false solutions such as “net-zero”, carbon

markets, and supposed “nature-based

solutions” (including timber plantations

and genetic crop modification). These

enable them to open new markets and

opportunities to profiteer from the climate

crisis, whilst escaping their responsibility

for the needed carbon emission cuts.

The costs of these false solutions are

carried by peoples of the Global South,

including Africa, whose forests and

lands are expropriated and financialised.

“Green Extractivism” is a new form of

extractivism. It refers to the continued

subordination of human rights and

ecosystems to endless mega extraction,

in the name of “solving” climate change.

This new variant of extractivism includes

energy generation through “green” gas,

hydrogen, and mega-dams; “green”

metal and minerals extraction to support

energy production and storage; new green

technologies such as electric cars; as well

as components needed for large-scale solar

plant and wind farms, and false solutions

to climate change, including REDD+,

carbon sequestration, cloud seeding etc.

International public and private

sector players continue to exhibit

enormous predatory interest in Africa’s

vast natural resources and markets. This

is fuelled by the “green” energy transition

underway in the developed Global North.

Green minerals and metals are needed

for energy storage, for the construction

of wind turbines and solar panels, and

GREEN EXTRACTIVISM

and the green frontier

A camel that died as a result of drought in northern Kenya. Since 2000, Mozambique, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, and

Kenya have been among the hardest-hit countries in the world.

CLIMATE CRISIS