Climate Extractivism: Avoiding The Pitfalls Of Extraction-Based Decarbonization

Abstract

Mainstream solutions to the climate crisis are driven by the combined imperative for economic growth. The path to solving the climate crisis is through major shifts in power relations across borders, class, gender, race, and human/non-human divides. The current sense of the climate crisis is stronger than it has ever been with people having personal experiences with their lives being impacted by climate change. Recently increased development in ecological modernist ideology has the resource extractive industries deploying discourses of climate progress to justify new rounds and forms of extractions like seabed mining. Fossil fuel producers have long denied climate concerns. Fossil fuel companies are finding that lowering their carbon fossil fuel producers is becoming necessary for financing. Reducing emissions may achieve some climate-related goals, but this will not lead to an environmentally sustainable outcome. Learning from past mistakes of extractivism and reforming is not only the responsibility of countries but also of all parties involved.