Dismantling Green Colonialism

‘Demonstrates that the climate crisis - along with mainstream responses to it - is playing out along colonial lines. It’s time to face up to this reality and build an anti-colonial struggle in response.’

‘This groundbreaking volume by scholars deeply embedded in the region’s political and knowledge production milieus, offers a timely, indeed acute, analysis of what a just transition might mean for the region. The authors examine in theoretically and empirically rich essays contestations over the Sahara, greenwashing Israel’s colonisation of Palestine, agricultural and mineral extractivism, green capitalism and finance and a range of other urgently pivotal subjects.’

‘A brave and timely book that offers hope for our planet. These essays from the Arab world analyse the complexity of the environmental issues at play in the region and offer an optimistic, global, democratic vision of transformative sustainability centred around climate justice.’

‘A much-needed decolonized examination of the climate crisis for all sacrificial zones. A focus on the situation in North Africa, an area of intense contestations pitching the peoples against the relentless push by fossil fuel speculators and other forces of neoliberalism is both welcome and a clear warning that must not be ignored.’

‘A must-read thought-provoking book for every researcher, policymaker and activist working on climate, energy, development and social justice issues in the Arab region. This volume educates and empowers its readers to think about the roots of the problems in clear, systematic, and transformative ways. A significant contribution to the literature on just transition, greenwashing, neocolonialism, extractivism, and neoliberalism.’

‘This book is crucial for those seeking alternative visions and policies to the complete disaster currently being produced by capitalism, and to capitalism’s failing global and local projects to deal with an issue that is a question of life and death. Despite the multi-dimensional crisis that the Arab region – and the whole world – is going through […] the Arab region remains largely absent from the intensifying debate over the future.’

‘Just as the science is telling us loud and clear that the current situation of climate deterioration may be our last chance “before it is too late”, so the research and knowledge presented in this book, including its practical and feasible recommendations (which are directed to people rather than to the indifferent, comprador regimes in the Arab region), serves as wake-up call, reminding us of the urgent need to act before it is too late.’

‘[T]his book serves as a crucial link in the collective efforts and common priorities of climate experts and climate justice advocates in Arab countries who, moreover, refuse the new colonialism that is disguised in some agendas around addressing climate change and harnessing renewable energies. I hope this book can be a catalyst that will prompt governments and civil society organizations and institutions to pursue climate justice and achieve energy democracy in North Africa.’

‘For anyone committed to putting the Just into Just Transition this is a vital intervention that connects the past to the present and challenges us not only to reimagine the future, but to stand with those on the frontlines fighting for it.’

‘The inevitable consequences of climate change caused by extractivism will mostly affect vulnerable communities … The authors push us to be critical of green projects and remind us that not everything green should be blindly accepted.’

Dr Hamza Hamouchene is a London-based Algerian researcher and activist. He is the North Africa Programme Coordinator at the Transnational Institute (TNI), and a founding member of Algeria Solidarity Campaign (ASC), Environmental Justice North Africa (EJNA) and the North African Food Sovereignty Network (NAFSN). He has written and edited several books including The Arab Uprisings: A decade of struggles and The Struggle for Energy Democracy in the Maghreb. His writings have appeared in Africa Is A Country, Guardian, Huffington Post, Middle East Eye, New Internationalist, Jadaliyya, openDemocracy, ROAR and other places.

Katie Sandwell is a Programme Coordinator with the Transnational Institute. She has published on global food sovereignty movements, just transition and land struggles and is co-author of From Crisis to Transformation: What is Just Transition?

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