By Mariana Paterlini
If the energy transition requires territorial sacrifice and repression in the South, it is not a just transition. Mariana Paterlini explains how COP30 exposed the geopolitical trap of green extractivism—and why Latin America must reclaim sovereignty and rights to shape a truly democratic climate future.
The choice of Belém do Pará for the COP30 was symbolic. It placed climate negotiations in the heart of the Amazon, theoretically centering Indigenous peoples and Global South voices. However, as COP30 concludes, the reality across Latin America suggests that we are still far from achieving a just transition. If anything, what we are seeing is a reorganization of colonial dependencies under a green banner.
Far from promoting measures that favor the development of the South, the current scheme deepens global inequality. This model is grounded in structural inequality, enforced through repressive practices, and sustained by deeply asymmetric power dynamics. The urgent need to decarbonize the Global North continues to fuel the logic of “sacrifice zones” in our territories, threatening both human rights and democratic sovereignty.
A Transition Rigged for the Usual Winners
The central tension at COP30 was not technical, but political. The world is racing to secure critical minerals—such as lithium—essential for electric mobility in Europe and the United States. For the countries of the so-called “Lithium Triangle” (Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile), this has triggered a race to the bottom. However, these natural endowments are not lying in vacant lands; they are found in the high-altitude Andean salt flats, ancestral territories inhabited by Indigenous peoples. Whereas these three countries hold more than 50% of the world’s resources of this mineral, instead of leveraging that strategic value, competition is incentivized based on who offers the cheapest resources with the fewest obstacles.
The central tension at COP30 was not technical, but political. The world is racing to secure critical minerals—such as lithium—essential for electric mobility in Europe and the United States.
To understand how this dynamic unfolds, Argentina offers a cautionary example. The country is implementing the Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI), a legal framework designed to attract extractive capital at virtually any cost. It grants corporations 30 years of fiscal stability and allows disputes to be resolved in international arbitration tribunals—bypassing local judicial and legislative oversight as well as key environmental and human rights regulations.
This is not simply an economic policy; it represents a profound weakening of the Argentine state’s capacity to regulate extractive activities and protect its territory. By prioritizing corporate stability over domestic regulation and congressional control, the new scheme allows the transition to proceed without consultation with elected representatives and while circumventing meaningful regulatory safeguards.
The result is “green extractivism”: mineral extraction that facilitates a transition in the North while basins dry up and the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Andean highlands are violated, repeatedly ignoring the right to free, prior, and informed consent.
The Repression of Dissent
An extractive model that ignores community consultation requires a demobilized opposition to function. In this sense, the political economy of the transition directly incentivizes the shrinking of civic space. In Argentina, this trend is institutionalized through mechanisms such as the Productive Security Unit—a federal force created to intervene in conflicts that threaten “strategically productive” (extractive) activities—and the anti-protest protocol, which enables federal forces to suppress road blockades, legitimizing the repression and criminalization of peaceful demonstrations.
[…] the political economy of the transition directly incentivizes the shrinking of civic space.
This repressive trend was visible during COP30 itself. In a deeply concerning move, the UNFCCC Secretariat sent a formal letter to the Brazilian government following a security incident, requesting an increased security presence in response to protests near the venue. As civil society organizations warned in an Urgent Appeal, this sets a dangerous precedent: when the very institution convening climate negotiations calls for securitization, the promise of inclusive participation collapses. It consolidates exclusionary mechanisms that silence those who inhabit the territories most affected by climate change.
Power Asymmetry and Climate Inaction
Beyond the insufficiency of voluntary corporate responsibility mechanisms, COP30 exposed the depth of corporate capture within the negotiation space. The summit corridors were filled with lobbyists from major fossil fuel and agribusiness corporations, whose presence outnumbered and out-accessed Indigenous delegations, activists, and civil society representatives.
The summit corridors were filled with lobbyists from major fossil fuel and agribusiness corporations, whose presence outnumbered and out-accessed Indigenous delegations, activists, and civil society representatives.
This imbalance of power resulted in tepid negotiations where, once again, civil society’s demand to eliminate fossil fuels was blocked. The lack of progress on this central issue reveals a paradox: while the North delays real commitments to decarbonization and fossil fuel phaseout, it deepens the South’s dependence as a supplier of raw materials for its own technological transition.
In other words, the “energy transition” is proceeding without confronting the power structures that produced the climate crisis in the first place.
Conclusion: A Political Struggle
The narrative promoted in Belém often framed the transition as a technical challenge of capacity and finance. However, from a Latin American perspective, it is impossible to overlook that the transition is fundamentally a geopolitical struggle. If the transition requires territorial sacrifice, repression of Indigenous communities, and the desiccation of our ecosystems to sustain consumption patterns in the North, it cannot be considered climate justice.
For the transition to be truly just, we must stop asking simply how to extract resources faster and begin asking for whom and under what power conditions extraction occurs. We need a regional strategy based on cooperation that prevents competition among countries in the Global South.
For the transition to be truly just, we must stop asking simply how to extract resources faster and begin asking for whom and under what power conditions extraction occurs.
In this regard, regional tools like the Escazú Agreement emerge as an imperative. Although implementation remains uneven, the treaty provides a legal roadmap to guarantee access to information, public participation, and—crucially—the protection of environmental defenders against violence. A meaningful transition requires committed states that do not abdicate their role as guarantors of rights and that embed these protections as state policy.
Ultimately, there is no climate future without human rights. The energy transition will either redefine power between the North and the South, or it will become yet another setback for an already eroded global democracy.
Mariana Paterlini is a research collaborator for the Environmental Justice team and the Institutional Fundraising Coordinator at the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), Argentina.
This article is published under the sole responsibility of the author, with editorial oversight. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial team or the CEU Democracy Institute.
