A climate-smart world and the rise of Green Extractivism

ABSTRACT

Climate change policies' implications for the capitalist system call for us to go beyond efficiency-driven extractivism and further analyse the outcomes of green policies. The implementation of Mozambique's climate change policy resulted in the emergence of green extractivism, a variation of extractivism that is based on the extraction, expropriation and transfer of emissions rights from rural poor, in favor of external accumulation. Emission rights are one's ability to rightfully use and benefit from ecological assets. Thus, under green extractivism, rural households are not only being deprived of resources determinant for their social reproduction, but also of their right to emit.

KEYWORDS:

• climate-smart policies
• extractivism
• REDD+
• rural livelihoods
• Mozambique

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the two anonymous reviewers who provided helpful and productive feedback and suggestions. All possible errors remain mine. I also thank the editors of this Special Forum for their collaboration, substantial feedback and support. A very special thank you to the Observatório do Meio Rural for their support during my fieldwork.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The manufacturing industry in Mozambique is vastly dominated by one megaproject that aims to transform aluminium. It is considered an atypical case of commodity trade in which aluminium is imported as raw material (from the Netherlands) and imported back to productive cores as aluminium bars. This multinational is believed to have settled in Mozambique, among other claims, because of the ease in environmental policies of the country and the fiscal benefits acquired.

2 Additionally, 25 percent of national territory was appointed to be reestablished as conservation areas, whether as reserves or national parks.

3 https://landmatrix.org/charts/country_profiles

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Natacha Bruna

Natacha Bruna holds a PhD in development studies (political economy of resources, land, environment and population) from the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is currently a researcher at the Observatório do Meio Rural, focusing on political economy/ecology issues within critical agrarian studies. Her research interests include land and models of rural development, agrarian change, (green) extractivism, climate change policies and narratives, rural livelihoods and social reproduction.