[an earlier version of this text was published in Portuguese at The Intercept Brasil - confira a versão em português aqui]

The attacks on oil refineries and desalination plants, once rare and considered dangerous escalations, now dominate newspaper headlines and signal a world in turmoil that has no regard for rules or boundaries. It has been the case for a while, mostly evidenced by the inaction and normalisation of the genocide in Gaza and whatever else Trump and Netanyahu are up to nowadays. Together, they test the waters of the absurd, just to see if the world will let them move the dial of death and imperialism a little further and, of course, get a glimpse into how much money can be made through war and ecocide.

Yet, it is deeply concerning that the debate that we keep focusing primarily on analysing the leaders involved and how their decisions impact economic and market factors, as if the scenario of widespread death, with its human and ecological cost, were merely a backdrop. In a world of general online betting on absolutely everything, it is problematic that we sit down and try to guess Trump’s next move rather than ensuring, through just transitions and structural transformation, that whatever he does won’t impact us as much as before. This is especially true here in the Global South, for our historical conditions are plagued by growing economic dependencies and unequal ecological exchange. Whereas the emerging powers in the region appear to be keen on reducing these dependencies, appealing to other international cooperation arrangements and important tools concerning green industrial policy or resource nationalisation, there’s still a big blindspot along the way for reducing unequal ecological exchange. In fact, industrialising at home is no guarantee that this exchange will be lessened. It might just be the case that the more we produce of something at home with the purpose of providing for the global market, the more we will extract, not even benefitting local uses.

One of my favourite cases for highlighting this contradiction is Indonesia. Whereas its policy on nickel is praised almost everywhere as a prime example of green industrial policy in the Global South, ensuring that unequal economic exchange is reduced and that better jobs are created out of nickel production, as it stands today, the growth in nickel processing has also meant more greenhouse gases emissions from coal-fired plants and more sacrifice zones from mining. All the while, the nickel processing and future nickel battery plants aim to service a market of nickel-based EV batteries that sits mostly outside of Indonesia, given that Indonesia’s domestic EV market is dominated by more affordable cars that rely on LFP batteries instead of nickel-based batteries. Therefore, it might be decent industrial policy, but whether it is actually green and whether it actually reduces dependencies on imports, that’s a whole other story.

But in addition to the mega-extractivist sector, we can easily point out the tunnel visions in energy policy. Global South countries looking to decarbonise or to become energy exporters instead of net importers have pushed towards more investments in national infrastructure. But what good is it when, at the end of the day, the more energy we produce, the more of it can be grabbed locally by agribusiness, dirty industries and, as is more and more the case, data centres owned by Big Tech?

Therefore, if we consider that wars and disputes over hegemony in such an unequal geopolitical system are, at heart, about the control of people and life, we understand that conflicts involving energy, water and other resources are never merely about accumulation. If, on one side, oil wells are seized, there is always another side without electricity, without fuel or without access to the basics for social functioning. In times of widespread energy crisis, it is worth understanding how this is an orchestrated crisis and how, once again, energy poverty exists as a tool for dominating the periphery. Allow me to bring in the context of Brazil and Cuba to the conversation.

What we mean by energy poverty

The Brazilian federal government defines energy poverty as “the lack of access to modern energy services by individuals or groups”. This formal definition is applied to guide public policy and is similar to the view taken in other countries. However, in the reality of a world in the throes of intense social conflict, energy poverty is much more than a problem of access to infrastructure, whether due to its absence or its cost.

In the field of energy justice and democracy, we understand energy poverty to be a state of systemic exclusion of people and groups from the resources necessary to meet their needs for a full life. This occurs through the commodification of energy and the capture of resources, infrastructure and strategic knowledge by dominant sectors. Consequently, energy poverty reflects class inequalities within a society and international disorder, such that peoples have their right to self-determination and autonomy denied in the energy context as well.

From this, we realise that energy poverty has many facets. Regarding economic access, we know that almost half a million people in Brazil still live without electricity. These are not people who choose to live without electricity, but groups and regions that have to improvise access to electricity and, as a result, are also denied their right to other public services, including healthcare and education. This is where energy poverty makes its daily home. In a world of intense energy expansion—whether in aggregate consumption or in the implementation of infrastructure projects focused on electricity, heating and fuels—the International Energy Agency warns: over 700 million people remained without access to electricity in 2024, thereby also undermining their stable and secure access to other basic rights.

This disparity has its historical roots in capitalism, colonialism and the imperialist system of domination. This explains the energy poverty faced by Ukrainians, Sudanese, Palestinians, Lebanese and Yemenis in situations of war, occupation and humanitarian disaster. The technology exists, as does the global capacity to guarantee the necessary infrastructure as a human right. But as energy is a commodity and a resource for the accumulation of power, entire peoples are excluded as both means and ends to achieve goals of domination.

In 2024, data centres consumed around 415 terawatt-hours of energy, and companies such as Microsoft are promoting the reactivation of nuclear power stations simply to ensure the supply meets their demand. Meanwhile, the world is accelerating the race for critical minerals to ensure the electrification of the capitalist way of life. Therefore, allowing hundreds of millions of people to remain in the dark is a choice.

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Dependence and power cuts designed by imperialism to punish Cubans into submission

Recently, the Brazilian historian Rafael Domingos Oliveira described a little of what it is like to be in Cuba during the most severe phase of its energy crisis. When fuel runs out, solid waste piles up in the streets and the lack of collection creates an environment conducive to the spread of disease. Rationing and prioritising generators for essential services such as hospitals cannot cope with the increase in demand, as the energy crisis acts as a catalyst for other crises, exacerbating problems and hindering structural solutions. The blockade, which has been strangling the Cuban economy for decades, has also left its energy infrastructure vulnerable, effectively cutting Cubans off from sovereign and free avenues to procure supplies, carry out maintenance and technical improvements, and invest in autonomous capacity – as would be the case if Cuba could participate in cooperation models aimed at expanding renewable energies such as solar and wind power.

It is not as though Cuba were oblivious to the benefits of an energy transition. Countries suffering from high commercial or political dependence on partners that supply them with fossil fuels, as is the case with Cuba, find in the expansion of renewable supply a path to autonomy and protection against external shocks and attacks. Although historically Cuba has depended on Venezuela, Russia and other allies to supply its thermal power stations, there has also been a recent effort to diversify this mix, to the extent that solar photovoltaic power reached 9% of the total energy mix in 2025, mainly through trade with China and Spain.

US sanctions hinder the establishment of fruitful and stable trade relations, as well as damaging the national economy, which has increasingly less revenue and more debt, making it difficult for the state and locally operating businesses to invest. The tourism sector, so central to the Cuban economy, nearly collapsed during the pandemic and today reveals a hotel sector – featuring many Spanish chains such as Iberostar and Meliá – with critically low occupancy rates and difficulty accessing supplies to attract the tourists who still visit the island. As an island mired in energy poverty cannot even maintain an optimal flow of flights, the crisis in tourism means further economic crisis.

And this is how Cuba, which could have escaped the systemic blackout through a solid energy transition strategy, is unable to secure the most basic tools for its independence. If European countries recognise the current oil price shock and import barriers as an energy crisis, what has been happening in Cuba for six decades is far more profound. Darkness is not a symptom of the crisis; it is the blocking of the capacity to confront a permanent colonial and imperialist crisis.

Unequal energy exchange - or the theft of energy in an increasingly electrified world

In the face of extreme cases of energy poverty, we must also speak of energy impoverishment. Here, we encounter situations distinct from rationing and widespread blackouts, as the process of energy impoverishment occurs by ensuring that countries and sectors already rich in energy retain their privileged access, hindering a fairer and more democratic distribution of energy expansion, and in certain cases capturing energy generation for the exclusive benefit of billionaires and large corporations.

The aforementioned example of data centres is particularly striking, especially as there are many projects to establish mega-centres for big tech companies in regions experiencing water stress or fragmented and scarce provision of essential services. We already know that the number of data centres grew by 628% in Brazil in just ten years, between 2013 and 2023, and that some of them consume as much electricity as an entire municipality.

Brazil and other countries in the region, such as Chile, are attractive to these companies, particularly in terms of their renewable energy expansion plans, as they guarantee access to decarbonised energy sources, supporting greenhouse gas emission targets that facilitate other corporate investments. In some cases, it is claimed that there is a local oversupply of renewable energy and that data centres can make better use of this, especially if they benefit from tax breaks and other incentives.

This logic is strange, yet typical of an energy market built without energy democracy in mind.

Recently, Brazil renewed the concessions for coal-fired power stations until 2040, and one of the public arguments – including that of the Minister of Mines and Energy – was that maintaining such a dirty source of electricity is necessary as a pillar of energy security, given that Brazilian electricity consumption is estimated to grow by an average of 3.3% per year until 2035. This growth forecast already incorporates the projected demand from new or expanding sectors, such as data centres. The message, therefore, is simple: since we do not manage the electricity sector for the sake of efficiency and democracy, we will expand all sources of supply, including dirty ones, so that there is no shortage of energy for the foreign data centres setting up in the country.

A similar logic is presented in the projects and memoranda of understanding regarding the production of green hydrogen in the Global South. There are many cases in regions such as Latin America and North Africa where investment and technical cooperation agreements aim to establish veritable private estates for wind and solar photovoltaic production, the megawatts from which will be destined for green hydrogen plants.

One of the central objectives is to invest in the technological development of ‘green’ energy commodities. Since it is not possible to export wind and solar energy directly to other distant continents, the approach is to use them as an electricity source for the production of green hydrogen and even conversion into green ammonia, which in turn can be exported for use as fuel or fertilisers. Although such investments lack technological maturity, particularly in terms of transport and efficiency, the actions of countries such as Germany indicate an interest in ensuring that the renewable energy generation capacity of the Global South can meet their ever-increasing demand for energy, given that they have no intention of curbing their high consumption.

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Energy privatisation threatens the sovereignty of the Brazilian people

This leads us to question the contradiction between discourses on energy sovereignty—reduced to the control and capacity to exploit energy resources such as oil—the priority given to exports, and the normalisation of a private sector that operates the domestic energy system, prioritising profit. If the presence of these corporations is already a threat to basic energy security, why would any country aiming for energy sovereignty let them operate with such freedom as is the case in Brazil?

Enel Distribuição São Paulo, for example, continues to insist that it has acted appropriately in the face of blackouts in the areas where it operates, particularly in light of Technical Note No. 36/2026 from the National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel), which may finally impose a penalty commensurate with the negligence and general precariousness practised by the company. On 7 April, the Aneel board unanimously decided to recommend the termination of Enel’s concession contract in São Paulo to the Ministry of Mines and Energy. Even the São Paulo City Council, which is firmly in favour of privatisation across the board, criticises the utility’s performance, claiming that “Enel is a company that fails to fulfil its commitments to the city, providing a deplorable service to the population”. This appalling service stems from a business model common to private concessions, which involves reducing staff numbers and under-investing in infrastructure and system maintenance, whilst profits and dividends are guaranteed.

Power cuts of this kind do not affect everyone equally. The elitist and racist dynamics of the organisation of urban space – and of the urban in relation to the rural – shape the focus of service provision and private infrastructure, whilst also affecting the capitalist public sector, which reproduces inequalities in its operations. As argued by journalist Ivan Costa, “in the favelas and suburbs, where access to energy is often unstable and the electricity grid is precarious, the impacts are felt more acutely”.

Whilst in major cities, middle-class and luxury housing estates have already begun investing in generators for emergency power supply in the event of prolonged blackouts, such investment cannot be expected in neighbourhoods and regions most marked by severe socio-economic inequality. This is also a symptom of energy poverty. And when a working-class family loses all the food stored in their fridge because they went 48 hours without electricity, this also contributes to a scenario of food insecurity. These crises are interconnected and deeply shaped by power structures, to the extent that the supposed quest for Brazilian energy sovereignty must take into account the damage caused by the private concession model for electricity distribution in the country.

Our Eletrobras was privatised for a mere R$ 33.7 billion in 2022 – a sum far below the approximate value of the company – and was renamed Axia Energia in 2025. It is responsible for 81 power stations (47 hydroelectric, 33 wind and one solar) and around 74,000 kilometres of transmission lines. Last year, it also sold its shares in Eletronuclear and effectively handed over the majority of the capital relating to Brazil’s nuclear energy production to Âmbar Energia, a company belonging to the J&F Group, owned by brothers Joesley and Wesley Batista. Âmbar also operates the Candiota coal-fired power station in Rio Grande do Sul and benefited from the law that renewed contracts with thermal power stations. The very same Ministry of Mines and Energy that encouraged the retention of coal in Brazil’s energy mix proposed paying a price of R$ 540.27 per MWh for Candiota, when, according to a report in Folha de S.Paulo, the average price charged by competitors using imported coal is R$ 359.50.

This is a context in which the national supply of electricity is expanding, but we are also paying more for it and cannot even be certain of a secure, continuous and equitable supply. It was in full awareness of the social and economic harm caused by privatisation in the electricity sector that Brazilian electricity workers launched a campaign as early as 2022 for the renationalisation of Eletrobras. At the time, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was still a presidential candidate and, according to the National Collective of Electricity Workers, had signalled his support for renationalisation.

In 2023, the Federal Attorney-General’s Office (AGU) filed a Direct Action of Unconstitutionality, also signed by Lula, with the Federal Supreme Court (STF), to challenge aspects of the privatisation, particularly the drastic reduction in the federal government’s voting power within the company. However, in 2025, the government itself abandoned this fight, proposing an agreement that validated the sale, despite public opposition.

Exploring paths to energy democracy

Although the approach that turns energy into a commodity demonstrates its flaws and injustices time and again, it has become quite normalised amidst crises. This makes crises appear as accidents or exceptional moments caused by external factors, such as authoritarian decisions by fascist regimes or mishaps along the way. A more holistic and peripheral view of the polycrisis suggests that this is not quite the case. If crises are not felt uniformly everywhere, the way of addressing them will not be the same either.

For this reason, agendas for renationalisation are very important, ranging from the field of energy production and distribution to sectors such as mining. Whilst cases such as Cuba’s require practical acts of solidarity—such as the dispatch of resources and photovoltaic panels by the government of China, as well as by Brazilian civil society groups—they also teach us the value of nurturing our autonomy. For us in the Global South, subject to these paths of dependency and vulnerability, it is our duty to refuse to hand over control of our infrastructure to private groups, placing energy democracy at the heart of our planning for supply and distribution. Only in this way will we have a sufficient foundation to build real energy sovereignty and contribute to a strategy that does more than help us navigate the shocks of the polycrisis. True sovereignty - as ecological sovereignty - is the pathway to actual economic immunity to these shocks and should be a priority for the Global South.

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Our region is abundant with riches considered “strategic” or “critical” to the rest of the world. Thea Riofrancos, author of the book Extraction, highlights that these terms are not random, but have a bellicose origin. Minerals and fuels are strategic not only because they can be used for important technology and development purposes, but also because they are not equally distributed. Some territories - and as a consequence, countries - have more of some than others. Therefore, in the geopolitical terrain, it is also important to secure access to these resources, even if they are sitting in/on land that is not yours.

Obviously, knowing the history of modern wars, we know that fossil fuels have played a strong role in the killing-for-resources machine. These are not often justified as the pursuit of oil, though. Although imperialism is profoundly illiberal, given that it operates through violence, authoritarianism, and domination, we witnessed a long period of imperial intervention justified on liberal terms. European nations that were responsible for slicing up entire territories, dividing up peoples, and plundering nature for resources during colonial times, later preferred to support war incursions, spying and political unrest in the name of freedoms, human rights, democracy and stability. How these terms were defined mattered little, as long as you could hold them to a higher stance and use them to lend legitimacy to some pretty illegitimate acts.

The United States, however, was the country to perfect this system. At the same time that it toppled democratic governments in the Global South to establish US-friendly dictatorships, it instrumentalised the ghost of communism to claim that real freedom was capitalist freedom, with the US as its major representative. This logic supported a narrative that still lives strongly in peoples’ minds. Whereas other countries ought to respect each others’ sovereignty and avoid intervening - unless it is done collectively through multilateralism and diplomacy - the US was different. Its fictional superheros are responsible for the whole world. When a meteor approaches, it is up to the US president to announce it to the Earth. When aliens arrive, it is the US politicians and scientists they want to meet. Our fictionalised planet is based on a version of reality where the US proclaimed itself responsible for the world, just so it could take on the whole world.

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Venezuela

Which brings me to the Venezuelan case. Whereas a lot of the narrative surrounding the last years in Venezuela concerned the 2024 elections and whether Nicolás Maduro had indeed won the presidency, Donald Trump's recent acts show that he is not concerned at all with pretending that he toppled some dictator to establish democracy, as was the trope of his predecessors’ interventions in the Global South. Even Maria Corina Machado, the leader of the Venezuelan right-wing opposition, was sidelined by Trump, who claimed she did not have the support needed to govern Venezuela at this time.

If Trump had been convinced the narrative of bringing in democracy was important, he would have surely tried to highlight Machado and promote Edmundo González Urrutia as the rightful winner of the 2024 election and claim that he would be the next president instead. This is what Macron did, after all, and it would have been aligned with the strategy encamped by Juan Guaidó a few years ago, who was treated as a Venezuelan president by many other countries, even though he de facto governed the country as much as me.

Whereas his threats of even more military attacks in Venezuela could have been enough to impose Edmundo González Urrutia as president, who would have happily take on the role as Trump's loyal puppet, Trump clearly has other plans.

The actions of his second mandate are not justified according to the standard liberal order. He is not concerned with the appearance of bringing democracy anywhere, much less respecting human rights. On the contrary, his point is very binary: rights are capitalist rights, and those who oppose his crony capitalist plans should have no rights at all. This is obviously terrible for US Americans, especially the working class unable to make ends meet while the president makes sure his friends get richer by the minute. It's pretty awful for the rest of us, especially on the periphery, since his imperialism can now be legitimised through a handful more tools.

Turns out that we do not need to be living under a controversial government anymore (truly authoritarian or painted as authoritarian) to justify US intervention. The silly citizens of the world that helped to uphold the US as the global police, the global justice system, and an overall saviour, will surely get disappointed to find out that no, Trump is not going to save Jair Bolsonaro from conviction and prison due to his crimes against Brazilian democracy. Why would Trump do this when he wants our meat, our coffee, our minerals? It was never about some US-based version of democracy; it was always about commodities, and Trump is not afraid to say so.

His public speech on the military incursion in Venezuela and kidnapping of Maduro - who was, whether you like him or not, the governing president of the country - followed a completely different version than if someone like Bush would have done it. Venezuelans should be happy that Maduro is out, because, according to Trump, a lot of them wanted Maduro out anyway and because now, with the US in control, they will be happy, they will know things will be better, and they'll benefit from all the oil that Trump and US companies will develop and sell on their behalf.

Maduro stood in the way of the oil grab, so he had to be removed. It had nothing to do with how Maduro was governing and it wasn't even about fear of the chavista 21st Century Socialism and what it represented. It is not that cold war-like - as much as this interpretation may be popular with the left.

The nationalisation of Venezuelan oil was a much older endeavour, dating back to 1976, when president Carlos Andrés Pérez tookover the petroleum industry. It was a time when other countries were also nationalising their oil supply, like Libya, Algeria and Iraq. For the US, this was bad news. As much as the country is an oil producer, its reserves pale in comparison to Saudi Arabia, for example, and later would be absolutely no match for Venezuela and its ginormous oil reserves.

This nationalisation process was actually quite organised. There was expropriation and annulment of contracts, with clear losses in terms of future profit for the US companies involved, but there were also agreements and some level of cooperation. In capitalist terms, the expropriation left the Venezuelan state indebted to the foreign oil companies due to contract breaches. In anti-imperialist reparation terms, the companies had already benefitted from way too many concessions and favours, so whatever was paid at the time should make them even.

The big oil grab

Yet, the US is using this episode of nationalisation to justify its next steps in Venezuela. Whereas a fictitious war on drugs is useful to persecute state leaders, as was part of the rationale for indicting Maduro and is also an element in Trump's accusations of Gustavo Petro in Colombia, it is too weak to ensure grabbing Venezuela's commodity sector and putting it under US control.

Since Trump's intervention has nothing to do with really helping the Venezuelan opposition - it was, in fact, this opposition helping Trump along the way - the point is to establish a rationale that would allow the US to take over the Venezuelan oil industry. For Trump, this is just taking back what the Venezuelan state took from US companies. Rather than trying to collect a supposed debt for the oil corporations, what Trump wants it full access to the Venezuelan soil. It is not about forsaken profit due to nationalisation; it is a clear message that if you nationalise and impede our access to resources, we can find an excuse to take over everything.

Strangely, in Latin America, it is very common for the developmentalist left to claim that it absolutely has to drill for fossil fuels, because, if we don't do it, the imperialist will come and take them. There's a fantasy that the imperialists can only take what was not developed yet, rather than whole industries. The Venezuelan case is proof that this doesn't matter. As long as the world is powered by fossil fuels, imperialists can wage war and coups to take them.

While, of course, this calls on us to develop a better strategy for sovereignty - which I elaborate on as ecological sovereignty in a previous post - I'd like to call attention to something else. As the race of critical minerals is also determinant of geopolitics, especially in a green transition marked by capitalists interests and technologies, many countries are keen on nationalising their lithium or their rare-earth minerals before it is too late. Brazil, for example, is working on a rare-earth policy, given its vast reserves, but foreign corporations are already operating in the country before we get to say that the “Neodymium is ours"!

In fact, just like with oil, a battle for the ecological future of the planet is at stake here. Clearly, some extraction and mining has to occur to promote the climate transition, but the current system is uncoordinated and based on capitalist goals, not one that could determine how much extraction is allowed, at what price, at what conditions and for what purposes. As capitalist extractivism stands today, everything is up for grabs. Sacrifice zones are normalised and the only thing that matters is how much countries will get to negotiate with national and multinational corporations to determine the share of the bounty.

Undue compensation

The issue is that, more recently, attempts to nationalise natural resources, to close down harmful operations or to at least determine the form and purpose of extraction have been met with a series of pressure tools by foreign corporations and their states. When the people of Panama decided they did not want a Canadian cooper mine to continue to operate, as their contract was in conflict with the national mineral policy and their environmental laws, the company filed an arbitration lawsuit claiming damages that could sink Panama's economy if the state had to fully pay them. As a result, the state is now inclined to extend the operations of the company.

Other countries, such as Honduras, have been a major target for these type of lawsuits, known as Investor-State Dispute Settlements. So, when Trump decided to directly support a candidate in Honduras, it was not because we was concerned with the Xiomara Castro government or even the fact that the left was reorganising within that country. Honduras does not mean that much ideologically to Trump. But when Honduras says no to special economic zones and unrestricted mining, it gets in the way of the commodity flow. And Trump really cares for the commodity flow.

His interests in Argentina, Colombia, Chile and more are all related. It is, obviously, advantageous for Trump to have ideological partners in the region, but it would do him no good if all Kast did in Chile was praise Trump and talk shit about immigrants. Trump wants that lithium just as much as he wants to keep oil flowing as if there was no climate change at all. You don't need to be a green capitalist to want to secure of the strategic minerals possible, you just need to be a capitalist.

This is why it matters a lot that Trump is justifying occupying Venezuela economically and politically for a while - maybe a long while - as (1) payment compensation due to nationalisation and as (2) power to actually produce and develop the resource in question to the fullest. He gets to grab resources with a value much larger than whatever the companies supposedly lost in revenue while strengthening monopoly power that will shut up dissent from other nations looking to buy that resource. If, before, you couldn't buy Venezuelan oil because of the sanctions, now you get to buy it from the country that applied those sanctions. It's a genius evil capitalist move.

This move sends a message about resource nationalisation. From the ecological standpoint, it shows that resource nationalism is not enough to ensure sovereignty, while deepening a destructive logic of global production. From the security standpoint, it shows that any country can be targeted if they nationalise industries where there was previous US investment. It sends a message about national policies for oil and minerals that treat these resources as national, but are ceded in partnership contracts to multinational corporations too. It seems that if you nationalise anything that was once touched by the devil, the devil will come back to take it all.

It calls us to take international solidarity to the next level. As much as the current situation is about Venezuela, it is clearly not just about Venezuela. Resource nationalisation leaves us vulnerable to lawsuits, sanctions, and wars. Many countries have lived through all modalities of this for simply denying unrestricted access to the US companies. But, if in the past, the US had to orchestrate elaborate coups or to go through the trouble of pretending to replace a regime in the name of democracy, now regime change and resource ownership change can go openly hand-in-hand. To survive this, we need to assert our sovereignty, yes, but we also really need a change in the global paradigm of production where industries and goods are refashioned in a post-extractivist logic.

As it stands today, as long as there are many buyers for these resources, with no concern for how they were grabbed and extracted, some imperialist is on the lookout. As it stands today, having a healthy liberal democracy at home won't protect us either (the tariffs were proof of this!). To slow down US imperialism, we need to stand up to Trump today as he looks to expand their zone of influence, but to truly stop it, we need an eco-social transition that revalues resources, their use, and makes some of them - especially fossil fuels - so obsolete for global production that it won't be worth it to wage wars for them anymore.

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Além disso ser bom para evitar o acúmulo de coisas desnecessárias e me fazer refletir antes de comprar algo novo, é um processo que, ao longo dos anos, me ensinou também a me desapegar de práticas, pessoas, instituições. Entendi que aquela faxina sazonal que devemos fazer em casa também se aplica a outros aspectos da vida. Um deles está nas redes sociais.

Não é novidade para quem me conhece de que tenho uma relação bastante turbulenta com as redes sociais, sejam privadas ou públicas. Apesar de ter trabalhado por muitos anos nelas, nunca me acostumei. Ainda bem. Quanto mais passei a entender do funcionamento do capital por trás das redes, dos algoritmos, da lógica de engajamento, da economia da atenção, da renúncia da privacidade e até da mercadorização do nosso lazer e nossos momentos de usufruto pessoal, mais passei a achar tudo muito, muito, muito desenhado e artificial. Desde então, sabendo de que ainda quero me comunicar privadamente e publicamente por ali, reflito diariamente sobre como manter algum pingo de genuinidade em espaços em que somos levados - mesmo sem perceber - a performar o tempo todo.

Muitas vezes, pensamos que isso é um problema de quem tem que trabalhar nas redes. Minhas amigas que são influenciadoras sempre relatam a pressão para engajar e converter e como é preciso até mesmo tolerar mensagens e comentários babacas de gente online para não perder números que garantem a renda mensal. Mas até quem não trabalha nas redes anda sofrendo de algo parecido. Li esses dias, em uma dessas páginas de meme, alguém falando que queria prestar concurso público pra poder sair das redes sociais. Parece que é isso mesmo, pois o que antes ficava só no LinkedIn está também no Instagram, no TikTok, no X, e até chegando no BlueSky. Oras, até no Substack também, não é?

Parece que precisamos vender nosso peixe o tempo todo, engajar o tempo todo, comunicar o tempo todo e para isso precisamos estar ligados no que todo mundo diz e faz o tempo todo. Me assusto quando vejo o tempo que as pessoas gastam online nas redes todos os dias e, nessas horas, fico estranhamente contente que meu trauma passado me impede de passar tanto tempo vendo posts aleatórios.

Como estar online me cansa muito, tento ser bem estratégica no meu uso desses espaços. O que me leva ao ponto real deste texto: se eu não gosto de alguém, se a imagem dessa pessoa me dá asco, se a mensagem que fulano passa não tem nada a ver com o que eu quero pra mim e pro mundo, por que estou seguindo essa pessoa?

Em outras palavras, se essa conta não me traz alegria, por que eu indico pro Instagram que é pra me mostrar seus posts e stories?

Quem educa seu algoritmo?

Desde a época do Tese Onze eu tentava passar a mensagem de que não basta reclamar que o algoritmo é tendencioso, que as empresas são um lixo que censuram conteúdos específicos e não entregam o que você quer ver, enquanto promovem mensagens e posturas a favor do capital, do consumismo e do autoritarismo. Esse tipo de reclamação é chover no molhado. Vamos esperar o que da rede deste cara aqui, que fundou o Facebook baseado em um site que criou em 2003 para julgar quão atraentes eram estudantes (mulheres!) de Harvard? Esperamos algo ético do cara que fundou uma rede social que em apenas dois dias foi derrubado por postar imagens de mulheres sem sua autorização? Nada, né?

Infelizmente, no capitalismo, não se corta o mal pela raiz e ele cresce e se torna uma grande floresta que suga nossa energia pessoal, vende nossos dados e consome cada vez mais energia elétrica também. Se o mundo inteiro tivesse imposto regulamentações a essas empresas logo no começo, talvez não teriam crescido tanto e se tornado tão hegemônicas. O problema deixa de ser primariamente do usuário, já que as circunstâncias sociais e de trabalho o levam a estar ali, e passa a ser realmente de estrutura de poder. Quando tentamos regulamentar algo tarde demais, nos deparamos com o enorme poder que essas corporações têm para manipular a narrativa e o jogo. É o caso da briga do estado brasileiro e a Meta no momento, já que a empresa não quer por nada aderir a leis e decisões do Brasil, enquanto segue sua expansão sem nenhuma transparência. É assim que contas como a do Chavoso da USP são banidas sem a menor explicação e é assim que um “bug” misterioso coloca contas de políticos (muitos deles de esquerda) em shadow ban, do nada, inclusive a de um presidente da república.

Parece então que, até o momento, nos encontramos reféns. O caminho passa por apoiar a regulamentação adequada das plataformas das redes sociais, tanto para proteger crianças, quanto para assegurar transparência e suporte na aplicação das regras aos usuários. A Meta opera com dois pesos, duas medidas, mas nem mesmo temos acesso a como medem as coisas com tanta discrepância.

O caso do X, uma rede que foi dilapidada por Elon Musk, agregando o pior algoritmo de todos, controlando alcance e se tornando quase irmã da Truth Social de Trump, nos mostra que também não basta um boicote de consumidor. Se esvaziamos um espaço para ocupar outro, não significa que o poder se deslocou, pois os espaços abandonados podem ganhar mais adesão e participação ainda por outros campos, que serão mais validados. Mesmo assim, tenho encontrado um pouco de paz no BlueSky, especialmente porque migrei junto com uma comunidade científica do clima que não conseguia mais fazer nenhum debate no X.

Mas da mesma forma que fui pro BlueSky, não me vejo abandonando o Instagram tão cedo. Talvez seja porque não uso a rede para trabalho mais e porque consigo ter um cantinho exclusivo pra família e amigos, talvez porque me parece que não temos para onde migrar.

O que me leva a complementar a necessidade de regulamentar (não só as redes, mas também outras plataformas, como as de streaming) - inclusive nos opondo ao monopólio dessas empresas, que compram umas às outras e eliminam as alternativas - com um debate sobre o que fazer com o conteúdo que recebemos no dia a dia.

Isso me faz questionar a razão das pessoas seguirem tantas contas. Brinco com minha amigas que seguem quase o máximo de contas no Instagram que não entendo como elas chegaram a tanto. É humanamente impossível acompanhar o conteúdo de 7.500 contas, mesmo se o Instagram entregasse todas as postagens com o mesmo peso, de acordo com o momento de postagem (como antigamente). É impossível porque hoje muita gente posta muito e é impossível porque, em teoria, temos que viver fora das telas também.

Quanto mais conta a gente segue, maior a competição entre elas para que seu conteúdo seja entregue. O problema é que ninguém sabe com 100% de certeza os termos dessa competição. Sabemos que imagens de rosto e corpo chegam mais longe que textos nos stories, mas é por que o Instagram favorece isso ou por que nós, como seres humanos, nos interessamos mais pela pessoa e pela fofoca? É o algoritmo agindo por si mesmo ou é o algoritmo agindo através de nós?

Tem também o condicionamento que o algoritmo faz com a gente. Eu odeio música em post estático. Sou daquelas que abre o instagram no silencioso e prefiro ler legenda do que ouvir a pessoa falando sem nenhuma descrição do tema. Mas hoje todo mundo coloca música em post estático de fotos, simplesmente porque já é comprovado que o Instagram favorece esses posts na entrega. Feliz de quem gosta de música aleatória em todo post, e eu que lute.

Com isso, vemos que há possivelmente um caminho de duas mãos em que o algoritmo nos condiciona, mas nós também educamos a rede para nos entregar coisas específicas também. Mesmo que eu seguisse 3.000 pessoas, tenho certeza que os stories do meu irmão ainda apareceriam sempre pra mim. E se não aparecessem, colocaria nos favoritos e comentaria sem parar até voltar a aparecer. Vou brigar com o algoritmo, mas vai me entregar os posts do meu irmão sim!

Se essa conta não acrescenta na sua vida, deixe-a ir…

O que me leva ao meu ponto final: por que vocês acumulam tantas contas entre as que seguem? Sério, gostaria de entender melhor. Creio que há gente que seguimos por educação, há gente que seguimos porque achamos que vamos querer saber delas em algum momento, gente que seguimos pra não esquecer que existe (como se fosse uma agenda de contatos), gente que seguimos porque é seguida por outra gente que seguimos, gente que seguimos só pra apoiar, e assim por diante. Mas quantas contas seguimos por que realmente queremos que seu conteúdo seja entregue no nosso feed diariamente?

Assim como na nossa casa, se juntamos coisa demais num espaço pequeno, fica difícil encontrar aquilo que realmente necessitamos. Faria muito mais sentido seguir apenas o que queremos achar e, quando quisermos saber de algo a mais, usar a ferramenta de busca (que é horrorosa, convenhamos, mas ainda existe).

É algo que também pergunto aos amigos pesquisadores que seguem contas de extrema-direita para ficar “a par". Mas, se buscamos artigos diretamente no Google Acadêmico, não seria o caso de, no dia específico que você tem que entender o que Nikolas Ferreira está fazendo, simplesmente digitar o nome dele e olhar? Não me parece fazer muito sentido, a não ser que se tratasse de uma conta privada, onde é preciso seguir para ver.

Eu me preocupo um pouco com isso porque pras pessoas que usam as redes sociais profissionalmente, o número de seguidores é capital. Você pode odiar o Bolsonaro, mas se segue o Bolsonaro, faz parte daquele número que vale alguma coisa pra ele. Reparei muito nisso esses dias, quando vazou o vídeo racista e colonizador do Luciano Huck ao lado da Anitta e as mesmas pessoas que vi xingando o Huck também continuavam lhe seguindo. Ué, você chamou o cara de racista mas vai continuar seguindo o racista? É porque, apesar de racista, você quer muito saber o que tá rolando na dança dos famosos?

Eu tenho inclusive amigos que odeiam uma pessoa que me fez muito mal, que falam mal dele sempre que têm a oportunidade, mas estão lá, seguindo a conta, sei lá, por curiosidade? Não basta fazer aquela sessão de stalker num dia qualquer, botar um monte de nome na busca, matar a curiosidade e ir embora?

Me parece mesmo que nos acostumamos é a acumular conta, bem como anos atrás o pessoal se orgulhava de ter batido o máximo de amigos no Facebook, sendo que amigos mesmo eram apenas uns 200. E aí, nesse acúmulo de coisas, damos mais poder pro algoritmo entregar só o que passa pelo seu filtro, e aquela informação daquela conta que você realmente confia fica pra trás; afinal, ela não usa mensagem sensacionalista, ela não faz apelo emocional barato, ela não intercala informação com fofoca. E depois reclamamos que o Instagram não entrega pra gente.

Será que não seria uma boa aproveitar o fim de ano e reorganizar suas redes? Fazer uma faxina? Perguntar-se a razão de seguir quem segue e se vale a pena continuar seguindo?

Será que podemos fazer a Marie Kondo da rede social e promover um pouco mais de desapego, ajudando a educar o algoritmo e impondo o nosso próprio filtro sobre o que queremos ter acesso? Eu acho que sim. A diferença é que na hora que você der unfollow naquela influencer chata ou no ex-presidente golpista, não precisa agradecer a essas contas antes de se desfazer delas. Já vão tarde!

Assine agora

The UNFCCC system was once thought to be the best we had in climate diplomacy and multilateralism. It soon became stale, frustrating, and filled with climate denialists, but we keeping adhering to it because it might not be the best, but it is what we have.

(The final plenary was suspended for a while on Saturday, after delegates complained that procedures were not being followed)

There are many reasons for the UNFCCC system failure, but let's focus on three:

1. The system is designed to focus on emissions, not their source.

   1. The fact that we can't even mention fossil fuels in final texts is basic evidence that COPs will keeping failing us. This enables fossil fuel producers to blackmail their way through negotiations and helps false market solutions - which have twisted “mitigation” into credits and trade - appear reasonable in the fact of very little progress.

   2. This lets states make weak pledges in their NDCs (which they don't even feel like they have to update and submit anymore anyway) without any incentive or intention to actually transition the economic sectors responsible for most emissions. (This also applies to deforestation, since most states treat it as a magical phenomenon that they will reduce through strong policy, but without taking away the power of ecocidal agribusiness, mining and industry - let alone discussing the much-needed reduction of meat consumption!)

2. The system is based on flawed multilateral consensus rules and procedures.

   1. This point raised by Mann is of utmost importance: “A small number of rogue nations cannot be allowed to block progress for the rest of the world. One suggestion has been a rule change requiring a three-fourths (75%) rather than a “consensus” of all countries for reaching an agreement. The cruel irony here, however, is that such a rule change would also require “consensus” among participating nations. There’s an easier solution however. It simply involves looking up the word “consensus” in the dictionary. … By such a definition, three-fourths support seems more than adequate to constitute “consensus” and, thereby, pass an agreement, under current rules, that meets the moment and commits to a rapid phaseout of planet-warming fossil carbon emissions.”

   2. When unanimity is not reached, the tendency has been to celebrate a handful of voluntary proposals and mechanisms led by some cooperating states, but that they may not even feel inclined to implement anyway. (This was Brazil's answer for the failure of lack of a fossil fuel roadmap. Ambassador Do Lago said “I will create a roadmap” and, while better than nothing, it feels like another consolation prize that we have no idea what will look like in the end.)

   3. So, if full unanimous agreements are becoming weaker or are being disrespected anyway, leading countries to do their own thing, one might say the procedures are failing no matter what.

   4. This one is just because it annoys the hell out of me: soooo many congratulatory texts and celebratory clauses about things the countries have failed to properly implement! Why are these even doing there? Just out of diplomatic tradition of giving each other a pat on the back? Do we really have all this time to waste?

3. The system opened the doors to big capital and polluters and they're running the show.

   1. I started looking into the influence of big corporations into the UNFCCC system back in 2011. There was even a report back then when I was just a Master's student. The fact is: it's only gotten worse. Every year is now a record year for big oil and big agribusiness. They get in through BINGOs, they get in through Party delegations (nice little credentials with extra access for polluters!), they get in as sponsors, they get in to showcase their good good green work at the green zone, they get in through hosting side events that will feed and entertain tired delegates. It's a disaster.

   2. “Oh, but scientists, research institutions, and civil society organisations are getting more badges too.” Obviously, the UNFCCC loves to talk big about inclusivity and democracy, but when you include everyone to a conference designed to fight climate change, including the people and orgs that are hoping to let the planet burn, you're using “inclusion” to mask injustice.

Assine agora

Obs: COP 30 brought some really disgusting partners and sponsors, I recommend you look at this post by A Growing Culture":

That said, what to do?

Well, we have at least two options:

1. We can go for a big and urgent push for UNFCCC reform.

   1. This is already part of the agenda of civil society. Here's a document from earlier this year with suggestions called “Reclaiming Climate Justice: United Call for an UrgentReform of the UN Climate Talks”. It gives us a really interesting blueprint and we should be acting on it to pressure the UNFCCC before COP31. I particularly like the part about ending the trade show, because, let's be honest, this is what the Blue Zone pavilion has become outside of the negotiating rooms as of late. So, seriously, if you're by any chance reading my tiny humble blog, then I know you know it's way more important that you read this document and discuss it with your organisation:

      

      This need for change was even recognised by Brazil's COP 30 Presidency. Basically, everyone who presides a COP and actually wants to get things done knows that the system is broken. Yet, we haven't had a since state (president of COP or not) actually push for reform talks. What we get is a few more committees, a few more civil society badges, and (when we're lucky) a few of a our critical demands actually included in the agenda. This is basically what happened in Belém: we got the just transition points in from the beginning, which secured a victory, but Lula (a big supporter of oil drilling in Brazil) only mentioned a fossil fuel roadmap when the COP was about the begin. If we had UNFCCC reform, maybe two weeks would have been enough to draft and aprove a roadmap to a roadmap (not an actual one, with expert-led parameters, as it should be, so let's all be honest and stop telling ourselves a reeeeeal roadmap would have been produced so fast). But in the current system, we get shut down by merely wanting to mention fossil fuels in the final document (something accomplished in Dubai, but that major petro-states won't allow anymore).

2. And/Or we can build the treaties and agreements we need through different platforms, but starting only with the states that actually want to help.

   1. It can be platforms we are already familiar with. This is what the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative is trying to accomplish. It can build on past successful examples and existing tools to get the ball rolling on the topic that never seems to make it to the stage that is needed during COPs. It is not supposed to be an alternative to the UNFCCC system, but it could be a way to breathe life back into it. So, all eyes on Santa Marta, Colombia, next year!

   2. We can also push for a global mechanism that could integrate and govern climate-related aspects of other treaties and negotiations. Something like a benchmark against 2C warming. This initiative could be hosted copying and improving the UNFCCC rules, but what matters is that it could, just like the Treaty initiative, start with the states that actually want to cooperate on the matter (leaving rogue ones out!) so they could establish a common benchmark to govern their other spaces of cooperation. It could help to form blocs when it comes to trade negotiations, labour standards, and even influence economic blocs such as the BRICS or impact G20 talks (yey, multipolarity! Isn't it what a bunch of people are excited about anyway?)

None of this is detailed or foolproof. My point is to offer a bit of brainstorming on the much needed way out of this constant COP stalemate. All of us who are climate scientists and/or climate activists are getting sick of how mournful we get at the end of each COP, only to devote so much energy to it again the next year. It feels like we are stuck in a very toxic relationship with the UNFCCC at this point.

That's why I believe it's important to dedicate more of our energy not to COP eulogies, but concrete strategies that will help us escape this prison.

What forces can strengthen the call for UNFCCC reform right now? Which organisations? Would any states embrace it? Can our most prominent climate scientists make the global call for it? Most importantly, do we have time to create meetings to discuss ideas to draft proposals to debate at conferences and see if we finally get UNFCCC reform before it's definitely too late?

And if we focus on the latter, the parallel mechanisms, how do we choose which ones, the rules, and the priorities, especially when we know the majority of states will only do something when we make them do it?

This even goes for the climate-friendly states, since many of them are only willing to pay the costs of transition if they know others are paying too, after all, they're in competition. In the meantime, the states that need help to transition, to deal with their loss and damage, to properly adapt, are being held hostage in this game.

Countries in the Global South are very excited about multipolarity nowadays. They talk about China, BRICS, building outside of the Bretton Wood Institutions, or about reforming the UN Security Council (which just handed Gaza back to colonial mandate times), the World Bank and the IMF (reforming this one seems like pure rhetoric to me). So why won't they embrace reforming the UNFCCC? It's easy to say the system is broken, but who will help to echo the call by civil society to make climate negotiations work - and fast?

We can also say that reform is not possible, that we need to outgrow not just COP, but the multilateral system completely. While I agree with it in principle (especially in my activist principles), the reality is that we need states to cooperate on this matter too. We're not quite yet living my dream of pluri-national ecological sovereignty, but still in this messed-up Westphalian state system where they call very important structural shots. This means that parallel initiatives such as the Peoples’ Summit are still fundamental, but they're not quite yet how we'll manage to break away from fossil fuels and big agribusiness. They're how we organise and refine our arguments and our politics, but we still need to translate these politics into mechanisms that states will use (or that will be used on them).

In the end, it's about a multi-prong approach that will still be imperfect. But it's definitely going to be better than this horrible system that we deal with every year.

Compartilhar

Ps: if you're interested in a recent academic paper reviewing UNFCCC reform debates, check out: Nasiritousi, Naghmeh, Alexandra Buylova, e Björn-Ola Linnér. “Matching Supply and Demand? Exploring UNFCCC Reform Options”. Earth System Governance 23 (2025): 100241.

Part of my concern to address this comes from the fact that, since science is not neutral, the climate and social science I practice is deeply influenced by what's going in the Global South, particularly my home country, Brazil.

Many eyes are on Brazil right now, given that it is hosting COP30 in the Amazonian city of Belém. Symbolically, it is a win. Brazil had been expected to host a COP before, but this effort was crushed by the denialism and pariah behaviour of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro government (2019-2022). Moreover, after a few years of COPs in countries denying freedom and space to grassroots and democratic voices for climate justice, Brazil's young democracy could offer more opportunities for popular dissent. This is specially sought after by Indigenous peoples, whose territories continue to be violated by agribusiness, mining, oil companies (both state and private), and whose claims of sovereignty are downplayed even by governments friendly to environmental issues and native populations. After all, the real sovereign can only be the state.

This is evident in the current battle between Indigenous voices and Lula's government in Brazil. Opposition to drilling for oil in the Equatorial Margin, a delicate marine ecosystem close to the Amazon Forest, is big. Indigenous leaders have voiced their opposition, including Cacique Raoni, who accompanied Lula up the presidential ramp during inauguration in 2023. Environmental groups and NGOs have showed how much a disaster this could be, both to the local ecosystem (which is, of course, connected to nearby ecosystems) and climate change in general.

Brazil is a bit of a shadow climate villain: its colonial period left a legacy of extreme land inequality and an economy based on the production of primary goods. It means that since 1822, when Brazil obtained independence from Portugal, the country failed to shift directions over use of land and to fight deforestation, with a strong period of land-use related emissions that began in the last century and continues until today:

When I point this out, I usually hear (from other Brazilians and from Global South colleagues) that Brazil cannot be held responsible for this, since it's colonialism's fault. Yet, emissions are clearly tracked to Brazil's Republic and the modern ideal that occupied both right and left-wing leadership over how to use the land, how to extract natural goods as resources, and the growing dependence on commodity exports for capital income.

This is to say: we did not create our dependent capitalism, but we sure perfected it - at the expense of Indigenous and quilombola communities, rural workers and peasants, and of course, our forests and global climate. Brazil may be a post-colonial state, in historical terms, but it never really decolonised. Our Indigenous peoples and descendants of formerly enslaved peoples are still waiting on proper reparations and for their perspectives to count beyond symbolic acts of representation. In fact, if their voices began to be treated as fully legitimate by the state, and not only when demands coincide with state development priorities, this would already be of big help.

However, the truth is that our territorial-based peoples are still treated as enemies of “development” when they voice their concerns about fossil fuels, mining, mega infrastructure projects and agribusiness expansion.

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Political cognitive dissonance over climate and development

We keep hearing from Brazilian leftists that fossil fuels are one thing, deforestation is something else completely. The failure to address climate change as a global catastrophe promoted by greenhouse gas emissions from multiple sources and to acknowledge, as many scientific institutions have begged us to, that our carbon budget is shrinking and emissions cuts should be radical and everywhere is a convenient failure. It lets us play nice, promoting policies that fight deforestation and gives us legitimacy for financial funds that further commodify forests while leaving only a small percentage of the dollars raised for the communities that actually care for them (yes, I'm talking about TFFF and how, unfortunately people read “forever forests” and immediately think it's a good thing rather than another market mechanism).

And when we play nice, we get to conceal all the other problems in how we approach climate: we say that we didn't emit as much from fossil fuels, so we get a “quota” to keep doing it; we say that it's okay that we keep drilling, since we'll export most of it and the emissions won't be ours, so our NDCs will be fine; we say that we need to drill for more oil, because this is how we'll finance our energy transition, but our budget shows that this isn't true; we say that we get to expand fossil fuels, because our electricity matrix is already so decarbonised due to hydropower, as if fossil fuels were a problem only for electricity production; and we say that we need to keep drilling for all the oil we can find, because: (1) others are doing it; (2) if we don't, then the imperialists will come and will use our resources.

I went over some of these arguments in my recent essay for The BREAK-DOWN and, later, during my talk for their podcast with Adrienne Buller. But let me stress the last point, since it connects for these last three years of work I've been doing on the concept of sovereignty and the need to re-work it completely if we are to survive the odds of global climate catastrophe.

The way Global South countries, especially under progressive governments, have weaponised the anti-imperialist struggle to justify fossil fuel expansion is not only problematic of an argument, it is also suicidal.

For some reason, everybody loves science when it is about pointing out the denialism behind Trump or Bolsonaro. But state developmentalists on the left don't like to acknowledge their own tendencies towards denialisms. Climate change is a global problem created through inequality and felt through inequality. This statement should be the main motivator for radical ecological transition based on strong reparations and compensation mechanisms. Acknowledging climate science should lead to a strong push for global fossil fuel phase-out, where the only debate would be over how to make it just and gradual to avoid collapse and more pain for developing countries.

But fossil fuel phase-out is not really on their negotiation table. Oil-dependent emergent economies are right to demand that the rich countries carry most of the burden, but if we are to wait for the people who broke the planet to be the ones with the strongest initiative to save us all, then we are fooling ourselves. In addition, it is highly problematic to address the need to make the transition just and equitable as just a matter of who does it first. To quote myself in the introduction to our “Energy Transitions: Just and Beyond” dossier:

“To believe that a fast Global North transition allows the Global South more time to do so in the future, after having its own turn with conventional fossil-fuel pathways of development, is to promote development and sovereignty with an expiry date. By then, the climate will have worsened for all, but the conditions for mitigation and adaptation in the Global South will be even more adverse, with the Global North having benefited from cheap extraction and technology without any reduction in its energy footprint or adjustment for energy sufficiency.”

Right now, the Global South is divided into at least two groups: the ones demanding full transition and capacity (including reparations) to do their own; and the ones demanding transition in principle, but hoping others do it first to buy time to squeeze every last drop of oil of each available field.

Unfortunately, whereas countries like Tuvalu and Colombia seem to be leaning towards the first group, Brazil has joined OPEC+ and pushed hard for a license to drill in the Equatorial Margin despite major outcry. In typical “tunnel vision” - especially connected to the Amazon forest - Lula went as far as to say that drilling in the area was not a problem, because it wasn't that close to the forest anyway. It's almost as if Brazil's climate duty was to the Amazon and nothing else.

If only that were true, it would mean that we'd be actually confronting the power of agribusiness that has devastated Brazil's Cerrado, is expanding its business to the Amazon at alarming rates, while greenwashing itself through flimsy claims of “regenerative livestock farming” and bogus carbon credits. But the opposite is true: we are funding agribusiness more than ever and Lula even met with Trump to defend the interests of Brazil's largest meat corporation, JBS.

But don't you worry! This is all very very very anti-imperialist!

At least this is what many leftist leaders, economists and pundits tell us. Their reasoning for anti-imperialism is based on a very narrow and chauvinistic view of sovereignty not only incompatible with the ecological challenged posed today, but also deeply colonial in relation to other sovereign claims to territory and ecosystems.

It is based on the idea that if resources are available, they ought to be used by the state for the good of all. The principle is not a bad one and I fully support it, for example, when it comes to public sanitation, public electricity, public transportation. In fact, I support it because I would like this to mean not just state-control, but full decommodification of goods and services that improve workers’ lives and empower peoples and communities who actually take care of our planet and indirectly make our lives possible and healthier.

But when it comes to fossil fuels, there is a big difference between asserting state control over resources against imperialist threats and equating control with extraction and full use.

For starters, it is not the fact that a country is drilling and promoting its own national-state operations that will protect them from the United States big global oil-grab. Venezuela is proof of this. What ensures that oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia hold their ground is a combination of state and capital capacities, including regional alliances and common investment deals, that makes them less of an easy target.

In the Brazilian case, it is not like Trump could just arrive here anytime, say that since we are not drilling within our oil-rich margins, so he will! I'm sure this kind of stuff crosses the mind of someone like Trump anytime, but oil-grabs come in many forms, including when Brazil's National Petroleum Agency is the one auctioning oil field for foreign corporations to exploit in alliance with Petrobras. Foreign powers have learned that they can access our oil, our minerals, our water, our soil and - they hope - our renewables through cooperation, deals and joint ventures. So, in such cases, when we do the drilling, when we open new extraction frontiers, we are actually opening doors for foreign use of our resource. The difference is that we keep telling ourselves that we are doing it in our own terms, not under the boots of imperial domination. But this is another lie that we tell ourselves to pretend our big national investments aren't following cues from international market pressures that might let us into the big leagues, but only as long as we play nice.

We should aim for “ecological sovereignty” instead

Our issue is that even though the anti-imperialist struggle is real and should be at the centre of how we evaluate state action in the polycrisis, this anti-imperialist struggle needs to be ecological too. The idea that the only way we can assert our sovereignty is by depleting resources to ensure capital income at the expense of global climate - with horrible consequences even for ourselves - is actually not very different from how the imperialists define their own sovereignty claims.

Earlier in the year, I wrote a chapter about this for a book that will come out next year (edited by Dena Freeman at Shanghai University) on precisely this topic. I go over the failures of framing sovereignty through a capital-nation-state Borromean ring (drawing on the brilliant work of Kojin Karatani) and then proceed to make my case for ecologising sovereignty. Of course, I can't go over elements of it here, but since I've been dropping “ecological sovereignty” or “popular ecological sovereignty” as my choice of conceptual framework in many other articles and pieces recently, I wanted to bring in two short paragraphs from my chapter, which also inform another paper I'm working on right now (hint: so if you have feedback on this, let me know now - it's how we advance work collectively):

“When sovereignty is framed through capitalist interests, the incentive for international solidarity is weakened and cooperation ends up limited to short-run economic and security goals. Thus, an eco-territorial internationalism, which includes states but is not restricted by statism, has to look for sovereign interests of many peoples at once, requiring an alternative frame and conceptual basis for sovereignty. “Ecological sovereignty” contributes to this alternative by focusing on interdependence with the rest of the planet in relation to the ecological and material conditions we share at various scales.

Ecological sovereignty is an encompassing frame that learns from building and interweaving different kinds of sovereignties globally - food sovereignty, energy sovereignty, territorial sovereignty – to inform another kind of economic thinking, less aimed at comparative advantage and more focused on global immunity to catastrophe. As a concept of sovereignty fit for building alternatives, based on “permanence, the capacity to stay and thrive”, ecological sovereignty helps to ensure mutual survival, while setting the tenets of a more “solidaristic mode of living””

I want to emphasise ecological sovereignty because I fear efforts for internationalist just transitions will fail if those promoting alternatives (progressive, leftist, socialist ones) keep insisting that we can do this by playing the game the way imperialists do. As of now, whereas Indigenous peoples demand sovereignty over their territories, states and NGOs are more likely to offer them participation in carbon markets than to fight the classes that continue to invade even legally recognised Indigenous land. Nowadays, when we say we want to protect an ecosystem, we find a way to attach a number to it, put it under the trust of some fund, and even use it to leverage our debts (as was the case of loss of sovereignty in Galapagos in a debt-for-nature swap that, in the end, has nothing to do with debt justice).

A framework of sovereignty that is based on ecological understandings is capable of overcoming tunnel visions that have favoured false market solutions to climate change and treating nature as divisible pieces that can be commodified at will. Ecological sovereignty looks not only at climate change, but at all planetary boundaries. It confronts the imperative of capitalist growth and identifies where we can reduce waste and damaging economic activities to make room for good and desirable growth, the kind of expansion that helps to restore Earth's metabolism while improving lives for a majority. Ecological sovereignty connects to other important debates on sovereignty as a way to guide their goals through staying under planetary limits: on food sovereignty, it means agroecology, restoring dignity to rural life, agrarian reform where needed, less meat production and more diverse foods on our plates; on digital sovereignty, it means addressing the excessive energy demand by Big Tech billionaires and their data centers so that peoples and states have control of their own data to limit how much is produced and how we use energy, land and water to upkeep it.

Protesters clash with COP30 security

Unfortunately, this is not the view of sovereignty at the core of COP30 today. Yes, there is more diverse representation. Yes, there is even more room for climate scientists to warn us all of the dangers of delayed action. But the parties in this Conference of the Parties still view sovereignty as a zero-sum game. This is understandable, as we are driven to self-protection and should not lower our guard when the far-right is taking over some many states all over the world. But this also means it is a good opportunity to reframe our demands away from market-solutions, kick the polluters out of the conferences, and learn from Indigenous dissent that shows us that the territory is not about a piece of property, but about the creation of life.

This is the basis for overcoming the contradictions of our anti-imperialist approach, where we challenge our opponents, but not the rules of their game. Ecological sovereignty will require that we impose some big “No's” on what can be exploited, by whom, for what purpose, for how long and these questions matter a lot, since they can qualify what we can do with climate financing to actually make climate action more equitable. It is about laying foundations for true longevity, something that should be at the core of how we interpret the word “sovereignty".

Right now, all states want their sovereignty and no one wants to be big losers in the polycrisis. But as long as we keep framing the hard tasks of transition through exploitation rather than custodianship, any sovereignty attained will always be sovereignty with an expiry date. Of course, it may expire for some faster than others, but our fight shouldn't be to be the last survivors in this mutual annihilation system, but the ones to break the system and lead us all into a common and good life.

Assine agora

O ultimato de Rueda é apenas mais uma das ações desesperadas da extrema-direita e do centrão que miram as eleições de 2026. A fragilidade da tática de governabilidade via acordos com partidos claramente opostos ideologicamente ao PT, a Lula, e a qualquer pauta verdadeiramente alinhada com a classe trabalhadora, é tanta que não podemos nem ao mesmo afirmar que tal governabilidade já existiu. Ela está sempre em crise, pois esses aliados atacam e sabotam o governo por fora e por dentro.

Com o trauma que parte da esquerda que estava no governo em 2013 ainda tem de rua, de convocar e mobilizar com vontade, parecia que o único caminho seguiria este de ceder às chantagens da direita, com um Congresso de maioria absoluta anti-povo, e tentar garantir a reeleição de Lula ano que vem, para que possamos repetir a mesma dança, talvez mais frágil ainda, no governo Lula 4.

Mas eis que a mesma direita que ataca o Brasil, chega com a solução.

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Tiros no pé são bem-vindos

Eduardo Bolsonaro está fazendo escola. Com certeza, ele contribuiu para o crescimento da extrema-direita no Brasil. Mas me alegra ver que, por ser mais fiel a si mesmo que às suas crenças políticas, tem ensinado aos seus amigos, sobretudo no seu partido PL (cujo “liberal” da sigla também não vale nada), a pensarem em si acima de todos, acima do Brasil. As manifestações do seu campo no dia 7 de setembro foram motivo de vergonha internacional. O desespero para que Trump salve seu pai, para que salve a família toda, em detrimento dos interesses imediatos de lucro das elites que tanto fomentaram o bolsonarismo, demonstrou que a permanência dos Bolsonaros no poder nunca foi questão de habilidade, mas sim de sorte, coincidência e amiguismo. A família foi útil para o mercado financeiro, o agronegócio, as mineradoras, e seguirá sendo enquanto conseguirem abocanhar muitos assentos no Congresso Nacional, nas assembleias dos estados e no domínio de prefeituras. Mas, quando esquecem que ocupam esses espaços para garantir, antes e acima de tudo, o lucro dos seus parceiros de classe, começam a meter os pés pelas mãos e vão perdendo credibilidade.

Não irei discorrer sobre os efeitos do apoio de Eduardo ao tarifaço e do seu empenho em seguir nos Estados Unidos para se proteger de uma futura prisão enquanto garante seu salário de deputado federal no Brasil, pois é um tema já amplamente analisado por muitos colegas e companheiros. Porém, há de notar que o julgamento dos golpistas no STF e a sede por anistia acelerou processos de aproximação e ruptura dentro dos partidos fisiologistas e do Congresso Nacional. A chantagem que Hugo Motta e Davi Alcolumbre promovem no cotidiano, segurando pautas de interesse não somente de Lula, mas principalmente do povo brasileiro, como a isenção de IR abaixo de 5 mil reais ou a redução da jornada de trabalho, está cada dia mais evidente. Não votam o que precisamos, mas pautam com urgência tudo que lhes interessa diretamente. O PL da Devastação deixou isso claro, mas a PEC da Blindagem (ou da Bandidagem, como apelidado pelo povo) forçou tanto a barra que a resposta veio de fora das instituições.

A votação dessa PEC, por tão absurda que é, agiu como panela de pressão. Temos deputados (desde a União Brasil ao PSB) postando vídeos vergonhosos de desculpas pelo seu voto, como se tivessem apenas se deixado levar. Temos a militância filiada ao PT cobrando posicionamento do partido sobre os deputados petistas que também votaram a favor e tendo que enfrentar a realidade de uma bancada que muitas vezes é liberada para votar contra o próprio governo. Temos eleitores do PP, da União Brasil, do PL, dos Republicanos, indignados com o voto de seus deputados e, quem sabe, refletindo sobre quem eles são e o que realmente defendem.

A extrema-direita parece ter se esquecido que o estopim para o seu crescimento nos últimos anos não foi o “conservadorismo do brasileiro". Sim, podemos argumentar sobre o crescimento da intolerância e a normalização do racismo, LGBTfobia e tudo mais. Mas a extrema-direita pôde crescer com isso e fomentar mais extremismo conservador porque, lá atrás, se pintou de “anti-sistêmica" e anti-corrupção. Agora, até Sergio Moro, que antes era tratado como o herói brasileiro contra toda corrupção, relativiza a PEC da Blindagem, falando de melhorar o texto, e é devidamente achincalhado por isso.

A repercussão negativa imediata dos votos na Câmara de Deputados fizeram até que o Senado se reorganizasse sobre a pauta. Há discursos sobre terem sido pegos de surpresa por Motta, por exemplo, o que, francamente, dá uma sensação gostosa de “fogo no parquinho". Desde o fim da semana passada, já haviam rumores que senadores já se reorganizavam para derrotar a PEC, com posição de rejeição do próprio relator, do MDB.

Felizmente, o povo não se contentou em esperar e pagar para ver. Sabemos muito bem como projetos são afundados pelos deputados e senadores quando a opinião popular é negativa, apenas para serem ressuscitados com roupagem mais “moderada" logo depois. Nessas horas, retiram alguns pontos mais polêmicos, esperam o assunto morrer, e conseguem passar seus pontos principais com folga.

Daí a importância das mobilizações de 21 de setembro. Os atos foram claramente de esquerda e pautados numa visão de Brasil Soberano, que não se dobra a Trump e que cobra o mínimo de decência dos seus parlamentares. O tom foi de indignação, mas também de festa. Talvez tenha sido essa combinação a melhor sacada de todas, pois comprova que a esquerda tem a capacidade de trabalhar um vasto leque de emoções para mobilizar. Oras, se o povo está cansado e frustrado, isso também inibe a formação de massas nas ruas. Para que marchar do ponto A ao B, voltar pra casa, e tudo continuar da mesma forma? E se pudermos fazer isso também celebrando nossa força vital, as vitórias garantidas até agora, e afirmando que não iremos recuar diante dos ataques da direita? E se - no país dos memes - fizermos isso também tirando sarro dos Bolsonaros? Parece uma boa receita e vimos o resultado disso no domingo.

A grande imprensa que mal anunciava os atos do campo progressista não conseguiu ignorar de todo a multidão nas grandes e médias cidades. Brasília, que não via uma marcha progressista tomar todas as faixas de trânsito em frente ao Museu Nacional há muitos anos, mostrou que ainda existe luta nas ruas da capital brasileira - no mesmo lugar onde golpistas queimaram banheiros químicos durante o julgamento da cúpula do golpe há poucos dias.

Os atos também foram importantes - espero eu - para os traumatizados de Junho de 2013. Aquela galera que odeia rua, tem medo de rua, acha que se a esquerda for pra rua, a direita vai pra rua - como se a direita não tivesse se tornado quase que dona da rua nos últimos anos. Vivem um delírio pós-traumático desmobilizador ao ponto de entregarem toda esperança de atuação política nas mãos de algum senador de direita que fará a coisa correta ou que respeitará uma aliança com Lula. Essa mesma gente que depois vem falar de campanha eleitoral, mas perdeu o contato com a mobilização do dia a dia. Já escrevi sobre isso e creio que estamos mais próximos de construir um antídoto a essa lógica derrotista de fragilidade institucional que habita, sobretudo, alguns círculos da militância de base lulista.

O bom é que Lula tem se lembrado que mobilização faz bem pro seu governo também. Quando a sua tática de governabilidade falha, ele precisa mostrar que suas pautas têm apoio do povo.

Ainda falta convocatória por parte do presidente, mas também mostramos que somos capazes de nos auto-convocar e sem aquela enrolação burocrática de agendar ato para daqui três semanas. Agora que comprovaram que é possível fazer ato com estrutura para shows de figuras como Caetano, Gil, Chico Buarque, Chico César, Djavan e Daniela Mercury, com apenas poucos dias de planejamento, está claro que isso de agendar ato para muito depois do fato sempre foi auto-sabotagem.

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E agora?

A PEC da Blindagem nos ofereceu uma lista belíssima, com grande valor estratégico para as eleições de 2026 também. Ora, se o nosso problema é que o Congresso não deixa Lula avançar com pautas populares, se as alianças amplas de seu governo nos deixam reféns de ministérios de direita e afins, é preciso promover uma grande faxina no Congresso Nacional. Já afirmamos que precisamos de um Congresso do Povo (escrevi sobre isso aqui), mas como fazer isso acontecer?

De um lado, sabemos que precisamos eleger mais figuras comprometidas de esquerda. Do outro, sabemos que há pouca margem eleitoral para essas figuras. Precisamos então abrir caminho.

Tenho refletido bastante sobre esses métodos, dialogado com companheiras de militância sobre isso e pensado no tipo de estrutura que precisamos levantar para não somente eleger figuras de esquerda, mas também - necessariamente - deseleger figuras de direita. A impopularidade da PEC da Blindagem até entre eleitores conservadores nos permite apontar claramente que figuras como Nikolas Ferreira estão ali apenas para servir seus interesses próprios (e ele mesmo admitiu isso, que querem ser blindados). Quando essas figuras são puxadores de voto, que aumentam suas bancadas partidárias, elas se tornam ainda mais perigosas.

Por isso, esse varal aqui com imagens dos deputados que votaram pela PEC da Blindagem me deixou muito feliz:

Já imagino um 2026 em que o povo, por iniciativa própria, porém munidos de conhecimento e estratégia sobre os principais inimigos que temos hoje no Congresso, espalhe o rosto e nome dessas pessoas ao lado de suas principais violações. Essas figuras têm muito dinheiro e espaço para fazer sua campanha, mas podemos fazer sua contra-campanha, expondo suas ligações, suas falas, suas posições.

Para cada voto que ganharmos para a esquerda legislativa ano que vem, precisamos arrancar dois ou três da direita. Se fizermos isso com puxadores de voto, de forma estratégica em cada estado, o efeito será multiplicador.

Intervenções artísticas e populares que nomeiam e ilustram esses traidores são muito bem-vindas, explicando bem que cada deputado que votou a favor da PEC da Blindagem votou para que possam cometer crimes - pessoais ou políticos - sem risco de serem punidos.

Ao tentarem poupar Eduardo e Jair Bolsonaro, com a blindagem e anistia, eles revelam que se enxergam mais nessas figuras do que na classe política honrada que luta pela soberania ecológica e econômica do Brasil nas condições insalubres da Câmara e do Senado. Essa linha divisória é central para a possibilidade de avançar políticas democráticas no Brasil e, por isso, precisa ser exposta por todos os cantos hoje, antes e depois das eleições.

Ps: Lembram da imagem de um Brasil dividido na esplanada no golpe parlamentar contra a Dilma?

Pois o jogo virou:

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Tenho insistido em amar muito por isso. Preciso continuar sendo humana e nadar na contracorrente do mundo desumanizador. Foi no humanismo (marxista) que me encontrei e me localizei na luta política. Quero continuar reclamando o sentido da humanidade que os opressores insistem em deturpar com sua violência e exploração. Sinto que isso me permite tecer mais conexões e entender melhor as razões das coisas - não pela vaidade de estar certa, mas para ajudar a derrubar os muros dos nossos erros coletivos. Para muitos marxistas, isso é algo demodé, piegas, ou até mesmo um tipo de fraqueza (juro que alguns, dentro do seu machismo, creem até mesmo que falar de amor na política é coisa de “mulherzinha”). Felizmente, sou blindada pelo feminismo, pela natureza, e pela descolonização constante até da forma de sentir. Penso que é o amor que alimenta a responsabilidade que eu sinto, mantendo respeito a mim mesma e a meus limites, e me faz buscar alternativas mesmo quando o pessimismo da razão ronda e faz casa. Isso é importante, pois como já escrevi antes, quase nunca mais encontro o otimismo da minha vontade. E se é preciso manter então uma obrigação da vontade, o amor pode ser uma excelente fonte de energia.

Assumo esse tom um pouco brega, que espero que ressoe como cuidado e acolhimento, porque tenho insistido em amar justamente ao ver o mundo com tanta dor e cada vez mais temor. Temos um bebezinho agora na família e sempre que olho pra ele me encho de amor e também de indignação pelo mundo que está herdando, marcado pelo passado. Ontem, coloquei ele pra ninar e pensei em como esses dois sentimentos pareciam contraditórios, mas não eram. Me peguei tentando identificar quais foram minhas primeiras memórias na infância de sentir indignação porque amava. Me lembrei da vivência no campo, quando meu pai e tios mataram um porco na área de fora da cozinha para o jantar e chorei ao ouvir seus gritos. Aos 9 anos, disse que não comeria mais porco, o que durou cerca de um ano e teria sido mais se não tivesse a ignorância de que bacon também era pedaço de porquinho. Menos de vinte anos depois, adulta, parei de comer carne para sempre e sei que isso foi semeado por amor.

Acho que foi assim também que entendi melhor sobre desigualdade e a luta por moradia. Meu pai, como bom sertanejo de Goiás, me acompanhava no violão para dormir, até que um dia o interrompi chorando. Ele cantava a “Balada da Caridade” e chovia lá fora:

Para mim a chuva no telhado / É cantiga de ninar / Mas o pobre meu Irmão / Para ele a chuva fria / Vai entrando em seu barraco /E faz lama pelo chão / Como posso ter sono sossegado? / Se no dia que passou / Os meus braços eu cruzei? / Como posso ser feliz / Se ao pobre meu Irmão / Eu fechei meu coração / Meu amor eu recusei?

Eu estava indignada. Estaria um dos meus tios com lama em seu barraco enquanto eu estava quentinha na coberta com meu pai ao lado? Meu pai riu com bondade e me explicou que o irmão da canção era um “irmão em Deus” e que isso significava que não podíamos recusar amor às pessoas com necessidade, que precisávamos ter bondade no coração. Foi nessa época que aprendi que no passado papai tinha se envolvido em vários mutirões. E foram muitos anos até que eu aprendesse que antes de eu nascer com uma cama quietinha, meu pai e meus tios moraram sim em barracos com lama, em casinha “beira-chão”, enquanto meu avô buscava trabalho a cada estação nas fazendas da região. A partir daí, cada vez que eu lembrava disso, eu olhava com mais carinho, mais amor para as lonas pretas dos assentamentos sem-terra no meu estado. Foram coisas assim, no meio de tantas outras, que me ensinaram o que é alteridade, na prática. Se não fosse o amor, dali não haveria brotado a solidariedade. E sem a solidariedade, eu teria demorado mais para entender que nada muda sozinho, que devemos mudar tudo nós mesmas, e que devemos mudar todas nós.

É por isso que quanto mais eu amo, mais sinto necessidade de ação. Peço que não se confunda, porque tenho aversão àquele tipo de ação de heróis individuais, que combinam mais com histórias masculinizadas e um personalismo que carrega contradições desnecessárias para a já difícil tarefa de articular lutas coletivas. Sinto necessidade de ação estrutural e ainda bem que sinto isso, pois me impede de me contentar com pouco, me faz celebrar vitórias cotidianas sem abrir mão do nosso programa máximo de vida saudável e emancipada nesse planeta único que temos.

O que me traz, sempre, à Palestina.

Eu não tenho raizes palestinas e até certa idade nunca tinha ouvido falar. Fui uma criança tão convicta que Jesus tinha nascido em Belém do Pará, que nem passava pela minha cabeça verificar essa informação. Israel era coisa do Velho Testamento e nada mais. Foi quando minha mãe me contou que uma conhecida da igreja ia viajar para se batizar no Rio Jordão que passei a olhar para essa terra lá fora, pois meu mundinho de menina nascida em Campinas, Goiânia (que eu achava ser a mesma Campinas da minha então cantora favorita Sandy também) era de países que jogavam na Copa do Mundo e um ou outro a mais. Quando a Sabrina adolescente começou a estudar melhor a história do mundo e entender o seu tamanho, sua complexidade, suas guerras e suas dores para além do Brasil, a Palestina já era ocupada há décadas. Seu povo já vivia sob apartheid, sua terra já era marcada por limpeza étnica.

Mesmo na universidade, muitas narrativas comuns dos professores eram de um “conflito” entre povos que se odiavam. Aqui no ocidente, tem muita coisa tratada como intelectualidade que conclui simplesmente que o que se passa no Oriente Médio é coisa de gente irracional, muito emotiva, muito intolerante. Felizmente, eu logo aprendi que isso era interpretação orientalista, logo aprendi sobre imperialismo e logo conheci um casal de amigos - ele judeu, ela palestina - que me formou de vez na luta pela liberdade do povo palestino. Sim, mais uma vez o amor deu aquele empurrão que nem os melhores livros conseguiram sozinhos. Como boa leitora de Freire que eu já era, isso fez sentido. Foi ele mesmo que tinha me ensinado sobre amar para ter raiva justa, bem ali na Pedagogia da Autonomia, pouco depois de ter me convencido que para ensinar é necessária a pesquisa (ela também meu grande amor):

Minha justa ira à colonização sionista me fez amar a Palestina e seu povo ainda mais. Nas vezes que estive ali, transbordei de amor, voltei com mais briga no corpo. Briga que me dizia que uma situação tão radical demandava solidariedade radical também. Por mais que palavras sejam também boas armas (sou escritora, afinal), era preciso desnormalizar o colonizador. Passei a rejeitar mais ainda a diplomacia de boa convivência, porque, mesmo entendendo que a geopolítica é um terreno complexo e contraditório, há linhas que devem ser respeitadas nas nossas alianças. O horror que eu já sentia por saber que o Brasil colaborava militarmente com Israel triplicou. Imagine então quão maior é o horror que eu sinto por saber que nosso presidente, alguém infinitamente melhor que o sionista fascista anterior, reconhece que há um genocídio em curso, mas não age para que o Brasil deixe de ser uma das fontes energéticas dessa matança!

O estágio atual do genocídio é de tortura. Sim. O ato de matar pessoas de inanição, desnutrição e fome no decorrer do tempo é ato de tortura. Insatisfeitos em torturarem apenas indivíduos palestinos, Israel tortura milhões de uma vez. Faz tudo isso sob o olhar dos aliados e dos demais estados que declaram suas indignações, mas não buscam intervir de verdade. Pode até ser que esses líderes estejam com raiva de Israel, de Netanyahu e do exército israelense, mas tanta inação indica que lhes falta amor, aos palestinos. Atualmente, os interesses de nossas petroleiras, da indústria bélica, do agronegócio, são mais amados que os palestinos. Se há outros afetos, devem ser medo e covardia. Parece até então que, salvo algumas exceções, qualquer preço para sancionar Israel é alto demais para essas lideranças. No caso dos líderes progressistas, realmente acho que odeiam a guerra e a morte, mas seu amor pela humanidade anda limitado, anda restrito, anda afundado em sua pequenez.

Esse amor pequeno tem sua função política, mas é do tipo que me deixaria preocupada com meu tio em seu barraco enlamaçado, sem me juntar jamais à luta por moradia digna. É um amor de clã, apenas dos nossos, e esse “nós", olhe lá, pode ser muito, muito restrito. Já o amor que move a solidariedade exige o reconhecimento do outro. Exige reconhecer que você não precisa ser palestino para amar os palestinos. O pertencimento político se faz na luta, pela causa, na concretude do nosso compromisso com justiça.

Infelizmente, quanto mais crianças morrem lentamente e dolorosamente de fome em Gaza, mais a noção de justiça também se esvazia. Menos moral teremos para buscar justiça se não tentamos aplicá-la quando temos as ferramentas para tal. E menos moral teremos para ensinar às nossas crianças sobre justiça se deixamos que outras, iguais em inocência, iguais em capacidade de dor, morram em algumas das formas mais cruéis. Me parece que nossos líderes não entendem que a falta de ação concreta é um tipo de tolerância e que ao tolerarmos o genocídio do outro, ensinamos aos nossos que algumas vidas valem menos. Permitindo a desnutrição das crianças palestinas também empobrecemos o nosso solo político, solo onde os opressores trabalham melhor.

Se a solidariedade pura e simples, movida pelo amor aos palestinos, não é suficiente então para que essas lideranças teoricamente democráticas ajam, deveriam então ao menos agir pelo amor aos seu próprio povo e às próprias conquistas, pois nisso, Gustavo Petro estava certo: a morte da Palestina anuncia mais morte para a humanidade. Se amamos o nosso povo, se amamos nossas crianças e as protegemos do barulho da rua na hora de dormir e lutamos por sua comida, lembremos que quando um opressor lá fora mata crianças com bomba de noite e de fome de dia, um opressor aqui do lado vai querer copiar também. Pode parecer pessimismo, mas amar é difícil mesmo e proteger a vida nos obriga à vontade da ação.

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The fact is that, as much as I've become a COP skeptical, I'd still have a bit of faith in Brazil hosting it if we weren't under so much distress, domestically, trying to hold on to what is left of our environmental legislation. But, in one more chapter of "Brazil is hosting COP30, but environmental destruction is still the norm at home", our Congress passed legislation that will destroy environmental licensing and allow harmful industries to "self-license". We've named it the Devastation Bill.

One day we're fighting the presidential office because of its promotion of fossil fuels as development and the flaws of the corporate energy transition. Our struggle for a fossil fuel phase-out is still dismissed even among allies and our industrial policy may be greening, but with lots of problems and an overly technocratic approach that reduces social participation to meetings. We have to hear constantly that “we need to invest in more fossil fuels in order to finance the energy transition", even though I'm confident that the people in government and at Petrobras who say it know it to be a big fat lie. In fact, it's quite the opposite. We have studies that show that we use oil revenue to invest in more oil. To top it off, we hear another lie. The one that Brazil is not at fault for climate change, so it has credit to spare in fossil fuel exploitation. Well, just because we're not among the top 10 biggest emitters in history because of oil, but due to land use change and deforestation, it doesn't mean that we can claim to be victims in this process. Our economic history is written through colonisation and agribusiness interests that added a lot of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and we are liable for those emissions, whether they led to development or just more dependency.

Since most days we're also fighting our Congress, we're pretty tired. Just yesterday, Congress also approved use of fossil fuel social funds to renegotiate the debts of agribusiness producers when they lose their crops due to extreme climate events. So, they create the problem, then they take the royalties that were supposed to at least help with education, health care and our energy transition and use it in their favour when they are impacted by the problem they created. With the Devastation Bill, they'll be able to create even more climate and ecological problems, caring nothing about climate leadership and fighting ecocide. Not as long as they profit from it.

To sum it up, the Devastation Bill takes away power from federal environmental agencies, allowing industries to negotiate directly with local governments, which poses specific threats to biomes and water access, since every jurisdiction can promote their self-interest. It gives agribusiness the green light to circumvent licensing. It benefits big infrastructure projects that cut through conservation units, privileging mega dams and roads, posing even more of a threat to our Indigenous peoples who continue to be persecuted and murdered by criminals from mining and agrobusiness.

The Devastation Bill will let many enterprises simply "self-license" by filling out a form online. This will become the rule and a licensing assessment, the exception. "Upgrades" to existing enterprises won't need licenses anymore, even if it means expansion. Banks are also celebrating, since they'll be immune to lawsuits associated with environmental damage from enterprises they finance. With the Devastation Bill, these enterprises are not even required to deal with damages. Public funds will end up footing the bill, even more than usual!

Disasters like Mariana and Brumadinho will tend to become more common. It is the normalisation of ecocide, while Brazil already faces the impact of big climate collapse and disasters. Congressmen from Rio Grande do Sul, which was under water for over a month last year, voted in favor of this bill.

This means that Brazil's obsession with oil developmentalism is not the only threat to meeting our climate targets anymore. The rule will be: fires, deforestation, more cattle and animal exploitation, and new roads, rail and waterways to make paths for commodity exports.

COP30 has been celebrated for being different this time: it's in the Amazon! But our traditional peoples have been excluded from strategic decisions, inhabitants of Belém are being evicted by landlords who want to make money from airbnb during COP, and greenwashing will be everywhere. The same congressfolk voting against nature and the very conditions of human life in Brazil will parade themselves during COP30, hoping to close deals, to grab a piece off the climate financing and bioeconomy pies. We hope Lula will veto this bill, knowing that climate action starts at home! We're not sure, but the next few days will be dedicated to pressuring the presidential office - without forgetting that Congress probably has another package of horrors waiting for us the next day.

Our climate struggle is a class struggle and those keeping an eye on COP30 should know we are tired, but still ready for battle.

A crise ecológica é a crise fundamental do nosso tempo, influenciando todas as demais, e por isso mesmo merece nossa atenção, inclusive ao agitarmos a necessidade de uma transformação democrática do Congresso Nacional.

Foto de Porto Alegre: Renan Mattos (Reuters)

O Congresso da devastação

Salles nem imaginava que ao falar de passar a boiada, ele nos permitira enfatizar questões centrais da postura devastadora da direita (e, lembremos, de parte da esquerda desenvolvimentista, “progresso” a todo custo, amiga da destruição prolongada em nome de alguns índices econômicos positivos a curto prazo). Nossa realidade política é completamente capturada pelo agronegócio. É uma verdade tão grande, que a chantagem imperialista de Donald Trump em nome da família Bolsonaro foi mal aceita pela própria direita bolsonarista por atingir os interesses do agro. A família Bolsonaro, como de praxe, se esqueceu que o golpismo e o autoritarismo apenas se sustentam quando alinhados ao interesse econômico dos mais poderosos e, hoje, na sanha de livrar Jair do destino justo de uma punição, demonstra não entender muito de como funciona a economia brasileira, o comércio exterior e que, até mesmo na extrema-direita, ideologia sozinha não sustenta alianças. Alianças são sustentadas por projeto de poder: enquanto a esquerda deveria se lembrar disso sempre para nutrir poder popular em aliança com a maioria da população, a direita tem dificuldades de lembrar que, no fundo, as famílias milionárias (e bilionárias) do legado colonial e do agronegócio não precisam de Bolsonaro para lucrarem; pelo contrário, ao concentrarem seus esforços historicamente em ocupar o parlamento, em garantir contratos, em fazer propaganda, e em convencer qualquer governante que o Brasil não avança sem eles, os donos da boiada ganham através de sua captura do estado brasileiro, não apenas de um governo.

A estratégia dos donos da boiada é múltipla. Há enorme investimento cultural (sigo recomendando este livro da Ana Chã). Há enorme diversificação financeira (bancos e agências cada vez mais especializados na carteira do agro, assim como reinvestindo o lucro do agro em outros setores). Há participação ativa nos planos de infraestrutura e desenvolvimento no Brasil (tendo a Ferrogrão, projeto da Cargill, e a BR-319, criticada corretamente por Marina Silva e defendida infelizmente pelo viés desenvolvimentista do presidente Lula, como dois grandes símbolos dessa influência). Há aliança concreta com a mineração industrial nociva (ambos interessados na dominação do sistema de commodities nas exportações brasileiras). Há participação na segurança pública dos estados (bastante visível no movimento “Invasão Zero” de fazendeiros na Bahia, que agem protegidos pela PM que mais mata no Brasil).

Eu poderia listar muito mais coisas, como já fiz anteriormente, que comprovam que os donos da boiada sequestram a economia e a política brasileira, e por consequência, destroem as condições materiais para justiça, redistribuição das riquezas, e verdadeiro progresso na nossa nação. Mas diante do avanço do PL da Devastação, é importante não perder de vista o óbvio: este Congresso Nacional não é inimigo do povo somente quando impede o avanço de pautas populares do governo federal, mas também quando se aproveita do frenteamplismo e do cada vez mais frágil presidencialismo de coalizão, para destruir os pilares mais básicos da capacidade de vida saudável dentro das nossas fronteiras e para além delas.

Numa manobra perversa, o domínio dos interesses comuns do agronegócio, da mineração, das indústrias de energia, e das construtoras dentro do Congresso Nacional, bota em risco o povo brasileiro e, ao acentuar as mudanças climáticas e ultrapassagem dos limites planetários, também os povos trabalhadores de todo o mundo. Assim, o PL da Devastação tem um peso muito maior do que aparenta: não é preocupação apenas para ambientalistas e povos diretamente atrelados ao cuidado da Natureza. Deveria ser atenção principal de todos que respiram, que comem, que bebem água e que pretendem construir uma sociedade saudável para seus filhos e netos. Com excessão dos herdeiros da classe dominante, que poderão comprar seus bunkers e alimentos a peso de ouro (afinal, sua classe já come carne com ouro), nossas crianças são diretamente ameaçadas por esse Congresso Nacional.

O licenciamento ambiental justo protege nossas crianças

É importante falar de crianças, porque, na verdade, tudo na política é sobre crianças. Nesse ponto, não estranhamos que os conservadores gostam de enfiar “crianças” em qualquer assunto, principalmente para causar pânico moral, distorcendo pautas sobre uma grande ameaça. Afinal, sabem que nós queremos o melhor para nossas crianças (e, idealmente, para todas as crianças, inclusive as palestinas), então o apelo funciona. O que escondem no seu pânico moral é que a maioria das pautas dos conservadores são sobre crianças não porque as protegem, mas porque representam a verdadeira destruição dos meios de vida necessários para que crianças cresçam em segurança, num planeta saudável, livres de conflito, guerras, agrotóxicos em sua comida, pó de minério em seus pulmões, cinzas de queimadas em seus olhos, e o zumbido doentio de usinas eólicas megalomaníacas em seus ouvidos.

O PL da Devastação, aprovado pelo Senado (o mesmo que atacou covardemente nossa ministra do meio ambiente), agora está nas mãos de Hugo Motta (o mesmo que quer aumentar a quantidade de deputados, que faz obstrução contínua às políticas de maior justiça tributária do governo federal, e que torrou centenas de milhares de reais do dinheiro público em voos particulares).

O PL 2159 ameaça o abastecimento de água em nossos municípios, pois retira a exigência de outorga de recursos hídricos. O PL permite que empreendimentos sejam autolicenciados, baseando-se em um formulário online e a promessa de boa conduta das empresas envolvidas. O PL favorece o agro de forma grotesca, retirando as exigências de licenciamento para as suas atividades. O PL também privatiza lucros e oficialmente estatiza prejuízos referentes a danos e desastres ambientais. Tudo isso é facilitado pela transferência de certas responsabilidades para municípios e estados, algo muito desejado pela extrema-direita que controla prefeituras e governos estaduais em nome dos seus aliados do agro e da mineração. As regras se tornarão arbitrárias e a troca de favores entre políticos e empresários se tornará cada vez mais comum e justificada.

Num momento de emergência climática já conhecida no Brasil, o PL da Devastação chega para piorar a situação e transformá-la em catástrofe climática permanente. Os mais prejudicados serão, primeiro, os mais pobres, nas periferias e no campo, já abandonados em casos de enchentes, secas, queimadas e deslizamentos. Mas se engana a pessoa de classe média no meio de São Paulo que acha que não será atingida. Se engana aquele pai que pensa que protegerá seus filhos e garantirá seu futuro apenas deixando uma casa própria de herança ou investindo numa escola particular e plano de saúde. O catástrofe ecológica aumentará o fardo dos sistemas de saúde público e privados, dificultará o acesso à educação e até mesmo a moradia própria deixará de ser símbolo de estabilidade a partir do momento em que tudo pode vir por água abaixo e centros urbanos se tornem segregados e fragmentados em nome do acesso a recursos.

Por isso mesmo, o PL da Devastação não devasta apenas o “meio ambiente” (que tanta gente nas cidades erra ao pensar que é algo distante do seu dia a dia). É o PL da Devastação da Vida, da sua vida e da sua família. Ele mostra como a defesa de crianças e da família por parte da direita brasileira é hipócrita e manipuladora. Se não há água potável e acessível, se não há ar respirável e livre de químicos, e se empreendimentos econômicos ganham a liberdade para se instalarem onde quiserem, sem prevenção adequada de impactos, a própria segurança nacional se torna cada vez mais ilusória. E sem natureza saudável, sem condições de vida boa permanente para a maioria da população, e sem segurança e estabilidade, não há soberania alguma.

Nesse momento de defesa da soberania brasileira diante de Trump e dos Bolsonaros, vale lembrar, então que defender um Brasil Soberano, que defender um Brasil para os Brasileiros (como vemos nos mesmos bonézinhos da esquerda que quer perfurar mais petróleo a todo custo), exige defender os ecossistemas no Brasil que prestam um serviço essencial à vida dos brasileiros. Atualmente, até a centro-esquerda é frouxa no tema do PL da Devastação, favorecendo os aliados de Motta e a velha ilusão de que o agro pode ser um parceiro do desenvolvimento. Como destacado em uma excelente reportagem do Sumaúma, ministros e parlamentares governistas fizeram parte do jogo de articulações e omissões que trouxe o Pl da Devastação até aqui. Infelizmente, de acordo com a matéria, até senadores petistas de importante atuação progressista, falharam pesadamente nessa pauta:

Quando o assunto é natureza e condições ecológicas de vida, é visível que até parlamentares de esquerda (ou centro-esquerda, como queiram classificar) cedem às tentações e caem, ocasionalmente, no mesmo campo que consideramos inimigo do povo no Congresso. Cabe a nós seguir em cobrança e mobilização para que fique claro que qualquer pauta destruidora do meio ambiente é também uma pauta contra o povo brasileiro e contra a soberania de nosso povo - afinal, a soberania popular e ecológica é o que determina a capacidade real de soberania nacional para além do militarismo e acordos comerciais.

Dessa forma, levantemos sim a bandeira de um Brasil Soberano, e façamos isso em nome de um Brasil Ecológico. Não ao PL da Devastação!

Confira no post abaixo as mobilização de 13 de julho na sua cidade:

Aí mora a armadilha do capital: faz o trabalhador crer que a riqueza provém de quem compra a sua força de trabalho e não do trabalho em si.

Num cálculo de 1% um pouco mais adequado, considerando patrimônio acumulado (fruto de acúmulo de riquezas), e não rendimento mensal (que pode facilmente ser gasto entre despesas familiares), a FGV considera que os 1% mais ricos brasileiros em termos de patrimônio acumularam R$ 4,6 milhões por pessoa. Se olharmos para uma porcentagem ainda mais adequada para identificar o real topo de uma das pirâmides mais desiguais do mundo, no 0,1% dos mais ricos, o patrimônio aumenta para R$ 26,2 milhões por pessoa. Esse patrimônio consiste em imóveis (rurais e urbanos), ações, automóveis e outros ativos financeiros e empresariais.

Sob tal contexto de desigualdade, a justiça tributária emerge com força e urgência. O sistema tributário brasileiro é conhecido por ser regressivo e por isentar o verdadeiros ricos - multimilionários e bilionários donos de patrimônios gigantescos - de obrigações fiscais adequadas. O resultado é uma luta eterna por arrecadações insuficientes de impostos para financiar plenamente políticas sociais e serviços públicos de qualidade, os quais diminuem o custo de vida e facilitam a existência da imensa maioria dos brasileiros - até mesmo da classe média e da classe média alta que se julga ou é julgada, erroneamente, mais próxima dos grandes ricos. O Brasil é tão desigual que em um sistema de justiça tributária, não seriam os 99% da população que se beneficiariam, mas os 99,9%.

É por isso que o movimento para uma reforma tributária progressiva, que ao meu ver vai além da isenção de IR até R$ 5 mil ou a criação de um imposto para os que ganham mais de R$ 50 mil, é potencialmente uma pauta estrondosamente unificadora. A reformulação da tabela de Imposto de Renda como um todo é urgente, assim como a implementação de impostos específicos para as grandes fortunas. O governo Lula está ciente disso e tem comprado essa briga, mas não sem soluços, equívocos, tropeços e o tradicional cortejo da governabilidade que trava pautas populares sempre que contrariam os interesses do 0,01%, da elite brasileira.

Para quem trabalha o Congresso Nacional?

Assim que movimentações orgânicas sobre a desigualdade no Brasil, incluindo sobre a necessidade de justiça fiscal, e sobre ações de deputados e senadores que agem para proteger grandes empresários em detrimento do bolso das classes trabalhadora e de pequenos e médios empresários, como o caso da conta de luz, cresceram nas redes sociais, a grande imprensa fez o que sempre faz: tenta manipular a indignação popular, domar as nossas vontades políticas e podar a capacidade de pressionar o Congresso Nacional para que trabalhe para o povo em vez de contra ele.

Não vou entrar a fundo nos méritos ou deméritos do governo Lula, que em seu terceiro mandato apresenta uma combinação de maior ousadia em certas pautas, enquanto navega sua situação de refém do Centrão quase que através de uma Síndrome de Estocolmo: ora enfrenta, ora agradece por trabalhem juntos. A dança da governabilidade lulista é altamente estudada e analisada, apresentando poucos sinais de evolução desde o primeiro governo federal petista. Os chamados para voltar à base e garantir governabilidade com o povo ecoam em certos momentos, mas, no geral, são subordinados à lógica geral de tentativa de conciliação institucional para poder governar. Historicamente, isso levou a altercações entre o executivo, o legislativo e o judiciário, mas também a alinhamentos, pois não devemos nos esquecer o quanto empresários e banqueiros têm acesso ao Palácio do Planalto, mesmo em governos ditos progressistas e populares. É essa a democracia limitada liberal e burguesa do nosso país, o que torna o conjunto dos três poderes alérgico à reformas estruturais. São essas reformas que alterariam a condições da disputa de poder entre as classes, desafogando orçamentos, permitindo outras formas de organização social, redistribuindo não somente renda, mas principalmente propriedade. As sonhadas reformas agrária, urbana, tributária, e uma trabalhista que pudesse findar a exploração da jornada 6x1 seguem no desejo do povo, mas são constantemente barradas pelos homens de terno que nos dizem que não é hora, ou que nunca será hora.

Assim, se faz necessário comprar mesmo a briga de que há algo podre dentro do Congresso Nacional e que é ali que devemos focar nossas energias desde agora. Não se trata de forma alguma de delírios como os insinuados pela grande imprensa de que o povo ou o executivo desejariam podar os poderes do Congresso (ou até mesmo fechá-lo). Isso é papo mais condizente com os verde-amarelos do 8 de janeiro que de fato invadiram e vandalizaram o espaço do Congresso com o intuito de aplicar um golpe antidemocrático. O que vemos em mobilização do discurso de classe hoje é inteiramente diferente. Há um respeito pela necessidade do equilíbrio entre os três poderes, mas há também o questionamento dos interesses que habitam esses poderes. A quem serve este Congresso Nacional, eleito em 2022, que busca aumentar a quantidade de deputados assim como a conta de luz? Um Congresso que limita o orçamento público para pastas fundamentais ao bem-estar e desenvolvimento do povo brasileiro, enquanto libera orçamento de ementas para os deputados aliados a Hugo Motta. Um Congresso que promove o PL da Devastação, se unindo inclusive a parlamentares governistas, para facilitar o lucro do agronegócio, mineradoras, empreiteiras e concessionárias no mesmo ano em que o Brasil se pinta de liderança sustentável na COP30. Este Congresso Nacional não está à serviço do povo, e se não está, a função social e política da população é cumprida pressionando, cobrando, protestando e demandando que pautas populares sejam levadas à sério. No centro de todas essas está a luta contra a desigualdade, pois ela manifesta diretamente o sentimento do antagonismo entre as classes exploradas e a classe que explora.

Nessa disputa, é fácil ver que a atual composição do Congresso Nacional não somente representa os 0,01% mais ricos do Brasil, como há membros dessa elite ali dentro. O estado não negocia os interesses da burguesia, mas é cada dia mais a burguesia em si. Enquanto nos Estados Unidos presenciamos as consequências da eleição das grandes elites diretamente ao executivo, no Brasil estamos no impasse onde, embora existam classes privilegiadas operando dentro do executivo, no Congresso moram alguns dos nossos multimilionários de verdade. De acordo com ferramenta do portal Congresso em Foco, enquanto a maioria dos parlamentares possuem patrimônio entre 1 e 2 milhões de reais, 24 parlamentares acumulam mais de 10 milhões de reais. O perigo não mora apenas nesses valores, mas em como multimilionários e bilionários se ajudam entre si, se apoiam, defendem seus interesses de classe conjuntamente. Em um Congresso Nacional onde somente uma minoria com patrimônio relativamente baixo ou mediano prioriza os interesses da classe trabalhadora, é ilusório esperarmos que os multimilionários lutem por qualquer um além de sua própria turma.

O caminho para democratizar o Congresso Nacional

Ao contrário dos chiliques da imprensa e do próprio deputado Hugo Motta, que bate de pés juntos que não é verdade que o Congresso protege os ricos em detrimento dos pobres, enquanto reclama de “polarização social", o despertar de narrativas de classe popular que questiona a atuação do Congresso é saudável e democrático. Vivemos um contexto histórico recente onde muita atenção é colocada na figura do presidente em tempos de campanha, mas o voto em parlamentares é secundário. Assim, figurinhas carimbadas da política tradicional brasileira conseguem perpetuar seus assentos no Congresso, expandindo também sua influência familiar, fazendo uso de máquina eleitoral local, clientelismo e supressão de alternativas partidárias e candidaturas Brasil afora. Corremos o alto risco de que isso se aprofunde mais uma vez nas urnas em 2026, nos levando à repetição de “acaba de ser eleito o Congresso mais conservador da história - até o momento".

Lula já reclamou que é difícil avançar com as pautas de sua campanha quando o Congresso está dominado por interesses contrários. É aí que mora a justificativa para se dobrar a esse Congresso e mobilizar a base governista para apoiar desastres em projetos de lei em troca de apoio para ações estratégicas do executivo. Nesse círculo vicioso, não ganha nem Lula, nem o povo, pois todo o horizonte político é empurrado cada vez mais à direita. E para não chegarmos a 2026 com as mãos ainda mais atadas, é preciso desfazer as tramas de interesses da elite brasileira (e internacional) o quanto antes.

É extremamente importante que as queixas sobre a atuação do Congresso tenham resultado em reações da grande imprensa, de Motta e seus aliados. Isso significa que conseguem se lembrar que por trás dos três poderes há um quarto, ainda maior: o poder popular. O poder popular é limitado sob o capitalismo, mas não é nulo e, portanto, não deveria ser tão tímido. A mobilização e a cobrança em cima de pautas que defendem e cuidam da maioria do povo são amigas da democracia. A polarização, nesse sentido, é extremamente bem-vinda. Precisamos que o Congresso se recorde que foram eleitos pelo povo e que isso não lhes dá o direito de usar do seu poder de voto e articulação para favorecer indiscriminadamente aqueles no 0,01%. É necessário repetir sim, todos os dias, que este Congresso Nacional, composto por estes parlamentares, tem agido em conjunto contra a maioria do povo brasileiro. A atuação fervorosa de alguns guerreiros representantes do povo, que algumas vezes até se posicionam contra os equívocos de seus próprios partidos de esquerda, deve ser valorizada e defendida. Os parlamentares populares sabem e vivem no seu cotidiano a dureza de remar contra a maré. Sabem que não é uma questão de meras divergências, mas de organizar as diferenças de interesse e de poder. Até os bons parlamentares que estão ali concordam e repetem que este Congresso é sim inimigo do povo brasileiro - mas não precisa ser.

Há tempo para mobilizar, gritar e ecoar nossas pautas ao ponto de constranger a maioria de parlamentares representantes da elite a fazerem seu trabalho constitucional corretamente, cuidando dos pontos que melhoram a vida dos 99,9%, que protegem nossas condições ecológicas hoje e para as próximas gerações, e que cumprem nosso dever humanista de apoiar a paz em outros territórios. Se Motta e a Globo se incomodaram, é porque ouviram. Portanto, não me parece hora de interromper nosso ímpeto orgânico de reclamar e clamar.

Para além disso, nossas organizações políticas estão cada vez mais cientes de que é fraco o foco extremo no nome do próximo presidenciável, se não tivemos uma plataforma ampla que permita ocupar o próximo Congresso Nacional. Ainda é pouca nossa educação política coletiva sobre as diferentes funções entre o legislativo e o executivo e sabemos que a direita se aproveita dessa confusão para culpar todos os males na presidência (o que também nos atrapalha a cobrar quando, de fato, o erro vem do governo federal). A vantagem de trabalhar com pautas é que elas são maiores que qualquer ciclo eleitoral e qualquer representante, então plataformas como o Plebiscito Popular ajudam a lembrar que temos voz sobre a política, sobre questões que afetam o nosso dia a dia, e podem empurrar mais iniciativas sobre pautas coletivas com as quais candidatos ao legislativo devem se comprometer no ano que vem.

Temos um excelente momento para perguntas às pessoas: qual seu critério de voto para deputados e senadores? Você votaria em um deputado que é contra a redução da jornada de trabalho sem diminuição salarial? Você votaria em um senador que quer limpar a barra de empresas que poluem a água que você bebe? Você quer mesmo eleger um fulano que vota por uma medida que aumentará o custo da sua conta de energia todo mês?

A verdade é que, no hipotético, a maioria do povo diria que não, que não votaria nesses sujeitos. Mas, na realidade, a maioria votou nesses sujeitos. Por isso mesmo é dada a largada do constrangimento coletivo aos parlamentares que hoje zombam do povo mas que, em um ano, pedirão seu voto novamente. Estratégias de comunicação popular que nomeiam esses parlamentares farão o trabalho democrático que a imprensa empresarial se recusa a fazer: expor a verdade e ajudar com que a população tome decisões cada vez mais qualificadas.

Isso pode e deve ser feito dentro dos nossos limites éticos, pois viralização e barulho por si só não ganham eleições. O que ganha é confiança, relacionamento, trajeto, solidariedade e um caminho coerente de defesa da vida e do cuidado. Sigamos com o intuito de politizar as pautas, explicar e mobilizar as demandas, enquanto expomos os interesses tortos e perversos daqueles que hoje se aproveitam do seu poder no Congresso para saquear e oprimir. Que em 2026, em cada cidade, em cada estado, o povo saiba o nome do candidato à re-eleição que encareceu seu custo de vida, que entregou ementas milionários pro amigo, que assinou projetos de lei que prejudicaram sua comunidade. E que, com isso, fortaleçamos estratégias de construção de poder popular mais livres de, a todo tempo, ter que lutar contra quem o próprio povo elegeu.

I've been doing work on the dangers of green colonialism for a while, in an attempt to show that previous tendencies by Global South states to try to emulate development patterns from the North (and failing) are now rebooted through a line of green industrial policy, green developmentalism, and commercial dealings that ensure access to our resources by Global North countries, while also limiting our imagination and prospects for alternative development that reconciles the planetary limits with higher quality of life. I was given the opportunity to write the preface for this study, and I was able to elaborate a bit more on it:

“Because these green initiatives operate within the current rules of capitalist accumulation, the global disparities of energy demand and consumption, the impacts of new technologies, the negative effects of supposedly green infrastructure and projects (leading to old and new sacrifice zones), and the economic growth imperative are left out of the conversation. Not only that, but the different meanings of development are taken for granted. Cooperation between states, which sounds benevolent and beneficial in theory, often means providing technical, industrial and technological assistance that contributes to a specific version of development. This technocratic veil provides legitimacy to models that continue to occupy, displace, and negatively impact entire regions in the name of development, but now as green development.” (Fernandes, 2025, p. 6-7)

I really enjoy researching green industrial policy not only because it is necessary, but also because I firmly believe that Global South scholars and activists can create and tell our own path of access to industrial goods without the fancy and false promises made by the North that continue to treat resources as infinite, even when they acknowledge “planetary limits". This happens because the “decarbonisation consensus” (shout out to Breno and Maristella for their great work on this!) will reckon with climate emissions and its thresholds, but chooses to ignore other ecological limits, negative impacts and the abundance of sacrifice zones generated in the name of development.

So in my collaboration with other Global South researchers (and a few excellent Global North allies), I really want to ask the questions: is technological transfer enough to bridge the gap and prevent the Global North from kicking away the ladder, or should we also be claiming for different technologies, with local development, and with different purposes? Do we really want to simply industrialise our strategic minerals ourselves, only to end up making batteries for individual EVs in the Musk-filled supply chain, or should we be planning and defining priorities of usage to ensure that we don't exploit everything and find a balance between ecological needs and other material production needs?

This is also very important for our reflections on jobs in the just transition. I published a long analysis on this already:

But a key matter I could emphasise here is education. One of the things that emerged in the case studies by the RLS publication is how Germany is in cooperations with ministries in the Global South to shape a green curriculum at the universities. While this is absolutely necessary, to ensure that we are already capacitating new workers into a transformed industry, without needing to retrain and move jobs, why is it that we need a foreign country, with its resources, to strike a deal to influence this new curriculum? Don't we have here an issue with methodology, intervention, but also the danger of misguided purpose? So, I added to the preface:

“These practices raise questions about the structure of decision-making in such projects and the level of autonomy local ministries and public servants exercise on projects and objectives set by countries like Germany. Moreover, many of these projects can also involve the private consultancy services of foreign companies, as is the case with a €5.5-million Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) project with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour in Brazil on green employment and curriculum (GIZ 2024).” (Fernandes, 2025, p. 8)

The fact is that not everything that is “green” is the kind of green we need when applying principles of just transition and confronting green capitalism. In a few months, I'll be able to share with you the excellent articles written by our collaborators on the Nacla issue on “Green capitalism in the Americas” I am co-editing. It will help to expose the traps behind false solutions and financial mechanisms, hopefully making the case that we need to go green, yes, but we need to paint it ourselves and in a truly sustainable way.

Blaine O'Neill/Flickr, CC BY-NC

Unfortunately, the big transition plans (when they exist at all) by governments looking to go ‘green’ normally bring in workers through bits of social participation, to ensure consultation procedures are upheld, but the job of actually writing transition programmes, debating projects with ministerial employees and setting out concrete guidelines usually falls into the lap of more traditional academics or private consulting firms, informed by a corporate perspective of transition, paid for with public funds or through international cooperation agreements that hand out foreign experts through “technical assistance” initiatives. It is a reality we know all too well when it comes to “development programmes” in the Global South.

This is no accident. It's a system of knowledge that has emerged from the belief that we are backward and underdeveloped, therefore we need expertise from abroad. It's when the fair demand for access to more advanced technologies and knowledges associated with an industry we did not get a chance to develop quite well due to colonisation and dependent capitalism gets mixed with the notion that this is all the wisdom we need to make transition happen. The result is obvious: communities and workers are seen as victims of the transition, who will pay some sort of cost through green sacrifice zones or shifts in employment, so they should be heard regarding these costs and how to offset them, but expertise regarding planning and what kind of transition paradigm we want at all is placed somewhere else, behind closed doors of statistics and models.

This is a problem for democratic deliberation, in terms of the process behind listening, creation and decision-making. It is also a problem for the content of transition - and this is what my post is about today.

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I was recently invited to a workshop in Bogotá, put together by the Progressive International and USO (Unión Sindical Obrera) and co-led by the wonderful Lala Penãranda from Trade Unions for Energy Demoocracy (and with whom I collaborated for this piece for the Energy Transitions: Just and Beyond dossier I edited at Alameda). Besides having the opportunity to see friends and comrades and share perspectives of transition with them, something that caught my eye was the focus on USO having a plan for transition that could be presented to the government, to policymakers and to partners. The effort was not to convince the fossil fuel workers represented by USO that transition was necessary and that they should just play along with it - a tiresome script I've seen played in many spaces throughout my 15 years or so of climate engagement and that, I assure you, goes nowhere and could even undo good work. Rather, the objective was to build on USO's conviction that the climate crisis is real, that it is already affecting their jobs and the role of fossil fuels in the Colombian economy, towards creating a plan, a set of guidelines that could be presented to the union workers at large in order to consolidate the position. Later, at the end of the workshop, we met with senator Isabel Cristina Zuleta and she further emphasised the importance of making sure this process led somewhere concrete: for our allies in Congress (anywhere in the world), it is much easier to make the case for transition and to fight denialists if we're the ones promoting the narrative of change, not just accepting it. This also means rejecting the view that these cohorts of workers are victims of the transition, which is something far-right parties have used to gain ground and votes by appealing to old formats of job creation and security. When we support fossil fuel workers in their plan to transition, we help to reposition them as problem-solvers, not obstacles to necessary change.

It is an insight that helps us understand where things went wrong in Global North countries that implemented decarbonisation projects in specific sectors without full worker participation and without a public plan for utilities and the establishment of energy as a right. If workers in the fossil fuel industry worldwide have come to understand transition as a threat to their jobs and livelihoods, this is partly the fault of the same actors pushing for transition in some way or another. This is why it is so key to bring the working class perspective from the beginning, not just at the point where we discuss and adjust impacts. In the Global South, it also offers an opportunity to show how a division between environmentalists on one side and fossil fuel workers on the other is blurry at best. Our workers have been subject to years of poor regulations, unsafe working conditions, risk of accidents, and are all too familiar with the impacts of ecocide when operations are not fully supported by public investment (or are completely privatised). Our workers are quite aware that the communities where they live usually become economically dependent on the big industrial activities in their surrounding. They are part of these communities, so they know of the health impacts on their children and they have come to understand how detrimental it is to perpetuate dependencies on activities that we should phase out in order to mitigate climate change. The issue is: when decarbonisation comes knocking at their door, it usually means economic restructuring, fear of job losses (and weakening of their unions), relocation plans that sound more like forced displacement and a complete uprooting of their lives.

This means that workers in these industries are not, by nature, denialists - even if sometimes they're painted so due to their opposition or resistance to greening in their sectors. These workers, unionised or not, are not part of an isolated category in industry that is alienated from the impacts of climate change and ecological catastrophe. The strange claim by some Global North academics that places the (industrial) working class and the so-called marginalised or frontline communities in completely different categories is just not applicable to the structure of periphery work in the Global South. It reads as a very weird, artificial, differentiation that does not really help with alliances or strategy - for that matter. It divorces production from nature in ways analogous to capitalism, giving the impression that we can reduce the whole of the transition to matters of employment, and hurts our great potential to change everything by engaging with the radical transformation of production throughout the value chain, both nationally and internationally.

I've become kind of allergic to this idea that we need to centre industrial workers instead of marginalised communities in the transition debate if we are to be successful, not just because I've seen the power of resistance and push for alternatives by communities fighting big extractivist projects, but also because I know that, ultimately, there is a lot of confluence in tactics and horizons across the subaltern classes. This debate inspired me to write an academic article a year ago (which you can read for free over here), on the need to build just transition paradigms that work everywhere. The point is to understand that if we reduce transition only to decarbonisation and the carbon metric, and if we treat matters of justice only in terms of guaranteeing that those at risk of losing their jobs will get to keep it somehow in the same industry, now greener, we are forgetting about actually fighting the major contradiction between capital and nature that brought us here in the first place: the metabolic rift.

It is neither acceptable nor really intelligent to treat transition as tiny little pieces of change, in isolated parts of the industry, because nature does not work that way. Our current system of production is based on taking without giving, which creates this ever more irreparable rift in our ecosocial metabolism, leading to bigger crises that capital may try to answer through technology and more inequality in order to prolongue its hegemony, but will ultimately fail into global catastrophe. Since our job on the Left - ecosocialists especially - is to prevent this, we need to do it through holistic and internationalist strategy. And we do it not just because we like the ideal of total emancipation and uniting workers across the globe expressed by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto back in the 1800s. We need to do it this way, because the majority of the people who will be impacted by transition are precisely the ones with the power to execute it without falling prey to false and partial solutions.

This should inform how we organise our struggles to highlight their convergence, not their differences. When we do this, we're able to explore and create the elements of transition that can bring short-term gains to workers, rather than this promise of a sustainable future paid with present sacrifice. Of course, there are costs to the transition, but if we offset them with an array of benefits, both immediate and in the long run, transition becomes something desirable rather than something to put up with.

We must keep advancing how the perceive and promote a good life, paying attention to the historical warning that, in the Global South, we could never develop like the Global North, which benefitted from unequal ecological and economic exchange, from the value and exploitation of nature and workers right here on the periphery. It also means breaking free from these little boxes of organising, where we say that union workers need to fight for their own membership, Indigenous peoples for their own territory, app drivers against Uber, migrants against unfair governments and border control… When we try to unite them, we usually say they should stand in solidarity with each other, as in caring for the other’s struggle is the right thing to do from a liberation standpoint. But when it comes to transition and repairing the ecosocial metabolism, our lesson is that it is all the same struggle, which makes the job of each level of sector of organising a lot harder. You can't simply claim a working class victory when you push for more jobs for building EVs for the workers in the automobile industry, if it means heavier extractivist pressures on workers mining for strategic minerals and on ecosystems already vulnerable to centuries of pillaging.

When creating unified internationalist strategies, there's no room for othering.

A perspective of transition from the margins calls for the understanding that to transition industries, we also need to transition organisations. This is the best approach to expand strategies beyond specific cohorts, turning solidarity into something organic rather than a burden, in ways to push for alternatives free from green colonialism and other traps that use transition and decarbonisation as tools for maintaining unequal economic and ecological exchange.

It shows us that workers in the fossil fuel industry are strategic not simply because their industry will change radically with transition, but also because they are really well-positioned to reframe how we approach energy sovereignty (in production and consumption), energy as a right (not dictated by the commodity consensus), the relationship between energy and the territory (how we live in it and how we approach the natural goods we extract and transform into resources), and the role of the petrochemical industry in so many other sectors (fertilisers, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, packaging, construction, and so on…). But I really disagree with readings that acknowledge this only to treat unions and workers as inflexible cohorts that are not open to changing their structures, their view of jobs and the impact of their activities, especially by detaching unions from the international network working class organisations. These readings are way too economistic, and often, when based in the Global North, tainted by chauvinistic nationalist views of working class power that will place the needs and desires of workers in the Global North, which are not immune to consumeristic and imperial influences, above those in the Global South.

Rather, my point is that: if workers in fossil fuels influence the production of so many sectors, we're also compelled to explore how current forms of organising sometimes keep workers bound by economistic concerns (something Antonio Gramsci warned us about many decades ago) in ways that are perhaps too rigid. It is why when workers at FUP in Brazil or USO in Colombia talk about the transition of Petrobras and Ecopetrol, respectively, from fossil fuel companies to 100% public energy companies, this is a demand for sovereignty beyond production, but for rearranging everything - including their unions as energy unions, so they can be strengthened by accommodating new types of jobs and new workers that will join along the way. Yes, in transition, certain roles will become obsolete, and we need to be the ones to plan its obsolescence by transitioning jobs and the organisations that support workers’ rights and energy sovereignty in the most just ways.

Since great strategic value brings great responsibility, I was really glad to hear interventions at the workshop by two USO leaders, Moisés Baron and Ariel Diaz, on how the inequalities of development that expose how Global North, imperialist countries, have contributed to most of the climate crisis cannot serve as an excuse to sit back and wait for them to fix everything for everyone. This is something I've been approaching as “ecosystemic responsibility". Whereas the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” is important from the standpoint of setting different emissions targets country-by-country, it cannot be used by Global South countries to overly delay its duty to act.

It really boggles my mind when I see so many respected progressive leaders in the Global South use this differentiation as an excuse to prolongue our dependence on fossil fuels, as if the atmosphere would take into account whether additional greenhouse gases came from the United States or from Argentina when initiating a process of extreme weather events. Not only do droughts and hurricanes fail to choose where they happen based on historical emissions, but one must be really trapped under fossil fuel hegemony to ignore that the more a country delays its mitigation and adaption tasks, the less prepared its economy will be for the impacts of climate change. The way value will be produced in 2050 will be different from a 2025 economy: either because most of the world accelerated its transition and won't need fossil-based goods anymore, or because everyone took so much of their sweet time and the piling up of crises in the polycrisis has generated so much chaos that older industries are vulnerable and cannot keep up.

This is a matter of sovereignty - the ultimate kind! So when organised workers decide they want to be a part of the transition conversation, this is not just about their jobs or adapting their industry to new demands. It is about restructuring so much of society to help us navigate away from the climate crisis and create industries and sectors that are sustainable ecologically and economically. It is about achieving sovereignty beyond the expiry date imposed by climate warming and capitalist crises.

With this in mind, I wanted to support our comrades at USO with tools to articulate the room to grow and to act in Colombia. Transition demands investment and it demands specific types of growth. Because of this, I try to emphasise the role that selective degrowth and divestment can play in our economies, reducing domestic and international dependencies, to ensure that as a global society we finally adhere to the planetary boundaries and limits of what is left in our global emissions budget if we are to be serious at all about the 1.5ºC and 2.0ºC warming values we discuss so much.

The words degrowth and divestment are sometimes scary, but I argue that they are so only if used frivolously outside of a plan. But our point is to have a plan for transition, which must organise the phase-out of certain economic activities in order to make room for others to grow. If we are trying to stay within the orange zone, this is really a job of adjusting - always, internationally. It calls for reducing dependencies at home and abroad and for strong tools for international coordination (something my friend and colleague at TIDE Oxford Amir Lebdioui explored here) that can help us ensure that transition can make sense everywhere. It is also a means for countries in the Global South to really value what we offer to the global economy, by playing to our strengths in terms of primary resources and potential for green industrialisation, as argued by Fadhel Kaboub - who also joined us in Colombia! - through his work on debt and sovereignty.

The reduction of dependencies from the Global South and the Global North can be done through delinking strategies for green industrialisation. This perspective has become quite popular in Latin America, with governments in Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Mexico betting on national development plans that associate transition with industrial development that will help trade balances by reducing the role of primary good exports in their economy and allowing for local production of technology and industrial products. While this is indeed good from the perspective of fighting dependent capitalism and how vulnerable it makes us to global fluctuations and imperialist economic tools, it absolutely has to be paired with a post-extractivist understanding if we are to really prevent further metabolic rifts and, hopefully, start repairing current ones.

One of the major flaws and deficits from current paradigms of sovereignty by leftist organisations and governments in the Global South is the idea that our sovereignty depends on our right to explore our own resources - but not really to protect our ecosystems. It is just not feasible to expect a growing global population to rise collectively to the consumption levels promoted by the imperial mode of living of the North - which authors Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen warn have never even been possible to all residents of the capitalist core. Therefore, delinking and green industrialisation will fail if it simply treats extractivism as a structure of economic dependence on primary goods for exports instead of a system that pillages nature for unconstrained production of things - many of which are unnecessary to a good life, break without repair, and lead to waste at levels never imagined before. This is why I'm partial to sovereignty strategies for delinking coupled with selective degrowth, in the Global South, so we can exercise not only our right to develop the materials we extract, but also to choose how much of it is necessary, for whom, and for what purpose. It is actually how I answered a question at the workshop on the impacts of lithium extraction and growing demand for electrification: I'd much rather see regulation that determines the destiny of our minerals for residences, hospitals and necessary industrial purposes, than to fancy electric individual vehicles that distract us from the expansion of public electric mobility. Real sovereignty, for me, is about full determination and autonomy, which fundamentally requires to set our priorities for transition.

But what about domestic dependencies? Things we need to produce to keep up with our own demands in our countries.

Allow me to offer what I think is a useful example of a major dependency on fossil gas output in Latin America: our usage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), derived from fossil gas1 processing and crude oil refinery process, as a cooking fuel. One of the reasons many fossil fuel producing countries in the Global South argue that we need to increase fuel production - and that this expansion is not incompatible with transition - is because it is necessary not only for electricity and industrial usage, but also in residences, affecting tens of millions of people at the same time.

In Brazil, in Colombia, and in many other countries, LPG has been the answer to provide people, especially in urban areas, with more convenient and safer cooking. One of the data we had for growing impoverishment and inequality under the Bolsonaro government was in fact that people were going back to using firewood or other unsafe fuel for cooking, unable to purchase “gás de cozinha” under his governments horrible fuel pricing rules that benefited foreign shareholders over Brazilian people. This is why one of our current social welfare programs, strengthened under president Lula, is actually a “vale gás” - a direct voucher program that should help about 17 million families cook in Brazil in 2025 with gas-based stoves by subsidising LPG access. In terms of fossil fuels: this is a domestic dependency.

So, of course, when imaginary threats of shutting down fossil fuel production overnight make their way into common sense, one would say: “So, do you want people to go back to firewood? Do you???”

The answer, of course, is no. Precisely because it is ‘no’, transition implies transforming supply as well as demand. And you know who knows that? Workers in the fossil fuel industry, since they supply LPG at work and use LPG at home. And this is why are comrades at USO highlighted this issue at our activity.

A few years ago, Colombia's UPME advanced plans on phasing-out firewood use (the​​​​​​Plan Nacional de Sustitución de Leña) in Colombian households and there was even a section on moving towards electrical induction cooktops. Of course, as is the case with firewood, you can't just take something away without promoting alternatives: incentives for producing other types of stove and for consumers to purchase/access these other stoves. This is the kind of planning that acknowledges that transition is a process and that it needs to be incentivised. Governments do this all of the time to support industries they want to see grow - sometimes directly subsiding the private sector despite its failures to truly contribute to development. So, why not establish a big national program for clean cooking? This involves various sectors: Research & Development, manufacturing and industrial production of domestic appliances, subsidies and even educational programs. Ecuador, for instance, has been trying something in this direction for a while.

In countries where the electrical matrix is already mostly low-carbon, as is the case of many in Latin America due to a mix of hydroelectric dams, solar and wind, not only are we phasing out the demand for LPG, but we are also ensuring that the alternative is cleaner. Obviously, this only works if governments resist the urge to add more thermoelectric power plants (using fossil gas!) to the matrix in their plans for energy security, which shows us the importance to coordinate transition across sectors.

Is it complicated? Very much so! But the difficulty in this process has long been used to simply accept our current dependencies and normalise an eternal demand for fossil fuels. Well, if green capitalists are daring to invest in knowledge and technologies to reduce their dependencies on plastic, for example, it is just unwise to avoid this route because our governments and societies are used to fossil fuels in our daily operations.

To promote these changes, we need to properly acknowledge that workers are not just pieces of the industries that need to be transformed. They are also the people who will see their whole lives change as a result of the transition. Because of this, it is important to build transition plans through active listening and direct knowledge of the fears, desires, hopes, insecurities and anxieties that have affected workers that are used to hearing about transition as expert-generated plans from above. Hoping to contribute to this methodology that help to understand, from the base upwards, the knowledge gaps in transition, here's a few examples of a couple of areas suggested in my recent exchange with USO, where working class knowledge in the fossil fuel industry should be central to transition planning:

Areas of technical cooperation from workers to governments - planning and implementation

• Working and living conditions - Privileged knowledge of reality

  • Retraining, downsizing (early pensions), and labour gap/demand analysis (curricular planning and transformation/formal training)

    • This part is perhaps the most important and immediate. Rather than treating these as jobs that will disappear, we need to plan so that workers don't! As the industry transitions, certain roles will be in higher demand, others will become obsolete. It is key to map out where they are and work with these workers on where retraining is desirable, where early pensions would be preferable, and where new skills should be built directly into university and technical curricula.

  • Job quality and workers' rights: decent work

  • Gap analysis/worker demands (planning and curriculum transformation/formal training)

  • Worker support to transition (including education and training debate)

  • Reduction of working time without prejudice to wages

  • More unionisation, but also including workers outside the unions (victories in the class struggle)

  • Cross-cutting policies: workers also live in their communities and territories - they are also affected by dirty or irresponsible industries and will be affected by the economic changes of the energy transition.

• Decarbonisation partnerships: national and regional - Changes in the productive matrix of emissions and analysis of opportunities for cooperation and regional coordination

  • Fighting our historical emissions in agriculture (push for agro-ecological agrarian reform - decreasing dependence on imported or local petrochemical fertilisers, which also generate greenhouse gases in addition to other problems of the monoculture agrarian model).

  • Cross-cutting policies for rural and urban workers

  • Broad view of technological challenges - does technological collaboration from the North serve the interests of our peoples or the demands for products from outside?

  • Analysis of production gaps between groups of workers in the region.

  • Development of studies and legislative work for a 100% public pathway for energy companies.

  • Debates for harm reduction programmes. Example: identifyng strategic use of green hydrogen in their operations (not for commodity exports), technological changes for emissions reduction and carbon storage, more productive research to support rejection of extreme energies (i.e.: fracking).

• Plan for gradual decommissioning of fossil fuels - Plan the reduction of demand for fossil fuels together with the structural transformation of supply

  • Recognising current dependencies with the aim of advancing the transition on fair terms in each country.

  • Decreasing internal consumption dependencies, mainly on extreme energies (‘Demand is not inflexible’ - domestic demand can be encouraged to change)

  • Redesigning of processes, technologies and logistic chains - looking at damage reduction and the search for alternatives in all economic sectors (beyond energy) that use resources from the petrochemical industry.

What is really truly wonderful is that unions have partnerships and internal capacity to better develop debates in all of these areas. What is really truly unfair is that, sometimes, governments will pay millions of dollars for foreign academics without any ties to movement building, and corporate consulting companies to produce data and recommendations in all of these areas, only to present them to workers at a later stage. It feels backwards, since how can you expect consensus if you only reach those most affected and central to these fields at final stages of consultation, not co-creation?

(and I'm not even mentioning how, sometimes, Global North countries are the ones footing the bill, choosing the experts and directing the results in the name of “cooperation”, but with their own interests at heart.)

Unfortunately, the colonial hierarchy of knowledge and expertise continues to operate in the Global South, even though we have direct expertise of our living realities and beautiful movement debates on the horizons we want to explore to escape the Anthropocene. To fight this, we need to stop positioning ourselves as groups to be consulted after the fact, after the central decisions have been made, and to promote our unions and our movements as the true experts in the just transition.

I hope this reflection contributes to furthering our debates on how to make it happen.

Ps: if you made it to the end of this 4,500 word+ reflection, maybe you'll like this other one on internationalist ecosocialist strategy from a couple of years back. Feedback I've gotten on it has really helped to shape my research and activist agenda on transitions.

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