• Date: Tuesday, October 8th
• Time: 3PM GMT

As the ecological and climate crisis deepens, the Global North has put forward (false) solutions such as renewable energy, electric cars, carbon trading, and green hydrogen. But beneath this sustainability facade lies a stark reality: new environmental injustices and the rise of green colonialism. The push for “green growth” and clean energy depends on the large-scale extraction of strategic minerals from the Global South, often at the expense of communities and ecosystems. This geopolitically driven transition not only exploits territories but also erases truly sustainable alternatives to living in harmony with the planet.

Join us to analyze the different facets of green colonialism and the commoditization of environmental politics, but also to explore the urgent need for global justice and ecosocial transitions, highlighting grassroots movements and alternative visions that challenge green colonialism and offer pathways toward a truly equitable and ecological futures. The contributions will draw on the open access book published earlier this year by Pluto Press.

This activity is co-organized by the Global Working Group Beyond Development, the Pacto Ecosocial e Intercultural del Sur and the Global TapestryThe weaving of networks of Alternatives of AlternativesAre activities and initiatives, concepts, worldviews, or action proposals by collectives, groups, organizations, communities, or social movements challenging and replacing the dominant system that perpetuates inequality, exploitation, and unsustainabiity. In the GTA we focus primarily on what we call "radical or transformative alternatives", which we define as initiatives that are attempting to break with the dominant system and take paths towards direct and radical forms of political and economic democracy, localised self-reliance, social justice and equity, cultural and knowledge diversity, and ecological resilience. Their locus is neither the State nor the capitalist economy. They are advancing in the process of dismantling most forms of hierarchies, assuming the principles of sufficiency, autonomy, non-violence, justice and equality, solidarity, and the caring of life and the Earth. They do this in an integral way, not limited to a single aspect of life. Although such initiatives may have some kind of link with capitalist markets and the State, they prioritize their autonomy to avoid significant dependency on them and tend to reduce, as much as possible, any relationship with them..

Miriam Lang is an activist academic and Professor of Environment and Sustainability at Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Ecuador. Her research focuses on development critique and systemic alternatives. She combines decolonial and feminist perspectives with political economy and political ecology. She is part of the Global Working Group Beyond Development and the Ecosocial and Intercultural Pact of the South.

Mary Ann Manahan is a Filipina feminist activist researcher and currently, a doctoral assistant with the Conflict Research Group of the Department of Conflict and Development Studies at Ghent University in Belgium. Her current research focuses on the intersections of indigenous people's struggles for self-determination, forest conservation, and alternatives to development. Over the last two decades, she has worked extensively with rural and women’s movements in the Philippines. She co-coordinates the Beyond Development Global Working Group since 2020

Breno Bringel is a Brazilian activist-scholar. Professor of Political Sociology at the State University of Rio de Janeiro and Senior Fellow at the University Complutense of Madrid. He is currently editor of the Magazine Global Dialogue and coordinates the Center for Research in Social Theory and Latin America in Rio de Janeiro and the Observatory of Geopolitics and Ecosocial Transitions in Madrid. He also actively participates in activist research initiatives and experiences of popular education in Brazil and is member of the Ecosocial and Intercultural Pact of the South.

Carlos Tornel is a member of the GTAGlobal Tapestry of Alternatives’s Facilitation Team. His work focuses on decolonizing energy transitions and energy justice.
Vasna Ramasar is a founding member of the GTA's Facilitation Team and Associate Professor in Human Ecology, Lund University. Her research focuses on feminist and decolonial perspectives on just transition and radical alternatives.

The session will be moderated by Madhuresh Kumar.