ABSTRACT
This chapter critically examines the ongoing global energy transition and the challenges it poses for sustainable development in the Global South. It argues that several players within the energy sector, even some fossil fuels, have turned climate change into an accumulation strategy. This has been made possible because the reduction of carbon dioxide has become the sole lens through which we assess the link between energy and sustainability. It argues that the ongoing energy transition is reproducing several dynamics that are reminiscent of colonial and postcolonial extractivism. It notes that despite the climate emergency, extraction of fossil fuels has accelerated under neoliberalism. It argues that the deployment of renewable energy (agrofuels, solar, and wind), because they require large tracts of land, is characterised by rentier strategies of accumulation within and around the state. Their deployment affects the livelihood of local populations that rely on nature for their subsistence and generates insufficient employment. Moreover, the existing technologies to harness renewable energy require substantial amounts of minerals and reproduce patterns of unequal ecological and economic exchange between the Global South and the Global North. The chapter concludes by calling for tackling the energy transition through a rethinking of the growth-oriented and consumerist model of development.
