In the global rush to address climate change, renewable energy has become the new frontier of international relations. Countries like Germany have positioned themselves at the forefront of the energy transition, heralding their commitments to climate neutrality and green technological innovation. Yet beneath this veneer of environmental responsibility lies a troubling continuity: the persistence of extractive, neocolonial relationships with the Global South.
This publication brings together six detailed case studies from Chile, Serbia, Mexico, Namibia, Brazil, and Indonesia that examine Germany’s role in the global energy transition through a decolonial lens. What emerges is a critical assessment of whether Germany’s diplomatic efforts, development policies, and corporate investments in renewable energy infrastructure and critical raw material extraction truly represent a departure from historical patterns of exploitation.
Neocolonialism defines the global terms of trade for renewable energy, as evidenced in the actions of multilateral financial institutions in their conditions for granting loans or the development policies of Global North countries in the service of the economic interests of corporations. These institutions often impose political conditions that perpetuate unequal power relations and dependency. This neocolonial pattern reveals an articulation of interests between elites in both the Global North and South, who collaborate to maintain structures of subordination while primarily benefitting from the energy transition.
The urgency of transitioning away from fossil fuels is undeniable. However, fossil capital remains firmly in control. Many fossil fuel companies have simply expanded their operations into renewable energy sectors, ensuring their continued dominance. Meanwhile, the global energy demand continues to rise, and the capitalist system under which energy is produced remains largely unquestioned. This precludes a genuine energy transition favouring decentralized, people-owned control over resources and prioritizing universal accessibility.
Our research examines public and private German actors and asks: At what cost is Germany ensuring it isn’t left behind in the global energy race? Following the war in Ukraine, Germany has intensified its efforts to secure energy resources abroad through direct investments and bilateral economic agreements. These arrangements, while presented as mutually beneficial exchanges, often involve dispossession and the outsourcing of environmental, social, and economic costs to the Global South.
All six case studies demonstrate that power relations remain fundamentally unchanged, with the most vulnerable populations bearing the heaviest burdens. From lithium extraction in Serbia to hydrogen projects in Namibia — a country with which Germany shares a troubled colonial history, including genocide — the pattern of resource extraction with minimal local benefit persists.
Policies in Germany and the EU to strengthen due diligence in supply chain laws have been significant steps to ensure that human rights violations and environmental degradation along supply chains do not remain unaccounted for. We support the negotiations for a binding treaty at the UN level to guarantee human rights and environmental standards in global business operations. However, we must acknowledge that instruments obliging transnational corporations to practice due diligence along their supply chains are inherent to the capitalist system and do not fundamentally challenge the hierarchies and inequitable power structures of global trade.
Furthermore, we cannot overlook the troubling relationship between the fossil fuel industry and the war industry; a connection that provides further evidence of why we need to overcome capitalist modes of production. The militarization of resource-rich regions and conflicts over energy control reveal how deeply intertwined these sectors remain, perpetuating cycles of violence and environmental degradation.
The authors of our case studies are academics, activists, and experts with either long-standing relationships with local communities affected by the social and ecological impacts of resource extraction, or who have committed their research to examining colonial patterns in energy transition. Their analyses do not aim to dismiss the necessity of an energy transition but call for a fundamental restructuring of how this transition is conceived and implemented. We are deeply grateful for their contributions to this publication and the discussions with them over the last few months.
The idea for this publication was conceived during an international meeting of colleagues within the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation working on social ecological transformation in April 2024. During our discussions, it became clear that the expansion of infrastructure for renewable energies and the mining of critical minerals to generate these energies are putting more and more communities, their livelihoods, and environments worldwide under pressure. Furthermore, it became evident that German development politics and capital in many regions steer actors to pursue an energy transition agenda that primarily follows their own logic and serves their own interests.
Therefore, we formed an international editing team with colleagues from our offices in Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, and Serbia to contribute to a publication that highlights the role of German politics and capital in neocolonial extractivism. As a German political foundation, we understand that we are tasked to educate on these processes and provide information that can be transformed into parliamentary and civil society action. The case studies were selected based on our regional offices’ existing networks and their engagement with social ecological transformation and climate justice issues. The publication lists the case studies by the level and intensity of present extractivism, starting with longstanding mining projects in Mexico, continuing with the rapidly expanded nickel mining in Indonesia, and finally, planned lithium mining in Serbia. We then look at projects where extractivist tendencies are less obvious since they mainly produce renewable energies. Here, our focus is on green hydrogen, beginning with an analysis of the mega project Hyphen in Namibia and later the impacts of policy interventions for scaling up the production of green hydrogen in Chile and Brazil. These projects are at different stages of planning and implementation, especially the resource-intensive transformation of green hydrogen into ammonia for export.
With a preface by Sabrina Fernandes, this collection invites readers to envision alternative pathways to addressing the climate crisis — ones that centre on global justice, democratic participation, and ecological restoration rather than merely replacing one form of extraction with another. The energy transition we need is more than a technological shift; it necessitates a transformation of the power dynamics that have historically shaped our world.