Bulletin 275 - June 2025

In recent years, 'energy' has taken center stage at important debates around solutions to the impending climate collapse towards which the world is heading. This debate encompasses everything from the 'energy transition' and 'clean energies,' to structural critiques that question why and for whom energy is produced. However, it is necessary to take a step back and reflect on the very idea of 'energy.' This edition of the WRM bulletin aims to contribute to that reflection.

The root of the climate crisis we are experiencing does not lie in the sources of energy we use but in the very logic of what we mean by 'energy.' While it is hard to imagine this today, the notion of energy has not always existed. It was created for a very specific purpose: capital accumulation. As long as we continue to normalize 'energy' as an essential resource for human life, we will never see the true causes of the climate collapse we are experiencing: a social system designed to concentrate wealth.

The following excerpts are from conversations we had with people who, despite living on different continents, have made the same choice: to live without electricity. Whether they live in the Indonesian archipelago or the Brazilian Amazon, their testimonies show that electricity is not an essential resource for human life. On the contrary, for these people, it is essential to do without it.

Food sovereignty cannot be achieved in isolation from energy sovereignty. Our vision on energy is one that honors the rhythms of nature, values the wisdom of elders and restores the balance between humans and the Earth. Because in traditional African cosmologies, energy was not separate from life. The fossil-fuel era broke this balance, severing energy from ethics, and turning it into a commodity to be bought and sold.

"People need to consider what they truly want; they shouldn’t rely solely on schemes or incentives. Here, we do not depend on electricity or solar power for irrigation. Since the time of our ancestors, we have relied on rain and rivers, and we must rekindle that connection”, explains Sunita Paharia, a villager from the Rajmahal Hills. In this part of India, communities with a long history of resistance against the expropriation of their ancestral territory are rebuilding their autonomy and future.

Our community of Caisán, in Panama, is living proof that it is possible to stand up to an exclusionary hydroelectric development model and its harmful impacts. Through community organizing, we stopped the construction of hydroelectric dams that were being promoted as part of the Plan Puebla Panama – one of the largest development and integration projects of Latin America. Today, we are moving forward with the construction of a fair and community-based energy model.

WRM Bulletin 274 included an article on the work of the Earthworm Foundation, entitled: ‘NGOs at the service of plundering territories: the Earthworm Foundation case’. It describes how corporations which are causing conflict in the territories where they operate profit from cooperation with groups like Earthworm Foundation, while violence against community activists, landgrabs and sexual assaults of women continue.

How does one rebuild community ties and the “energy-joy” in communities whose territories have been devastated by predatory projects? The following text presents the proposal of the Environmental Clinic, a project that was created to help heal peasant and indigenous communities on the border between Ecuador and Colombia, whose social fabric was destroyed mainly by oil extraction projects. The 'Huipala Proposal' presents a way for these communities to move toward their utopias and recover the “energy-joy” of living, after suffering the traumas of territorial and social expropriation. Here, energy is conceived in a broad and radically different way from the vision of capitalist societies.

The report, “Energy Alternatives: Surveying the Territory,” published by The Corner House, presents data and arguments that dismantle the thesis of the “green energy transition.” It also offers an extensive compilation of community experiences that propose energy alternatives based on a conception of energy that differs from the capitalist one. Access the report here (available in English and Spanish).  

This article is a scathing critique of the climate policies developed in international negotiations, such as the COPs, which only serve the economic interests of whose who are accelerating destruction on the planet. In the name of such policies, 'carbon biopirates' threaten diverse indigenous communities and their territories throughout the world. “In the face of this daunting landscape, Indigenous Peoples are not only resisting, we are also proposing alternatives,” the article states. What follows is the vibrant account of the energy transition that these people have decided to undertake based on their own values and ancestral knowledge. It is well worth reading.

Energy corporations are constantly profiting from activities that fuel and finance Israel's colonial regime of apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people. That is what stands out in the toolkit recently published by a global coalition from both within and beyond the region. Focusing on two particular corporations – Eni and Dana Petroleum, which in October 2023 were awarded gas exploration licenses from Israel in Palestinian waters – the publication is helpful to understand why energy is a critical issue in the struggle for Palestinian liberation.

The All India Conference of Forest Movements was held in Nagpur, India, from 5-7 April, 2025, bringing together over 400 representatives of Adivasi - Indigenous Peoples - and forest-dwelling communities from 14 states across India to share experiences, challenges and strategies. With a powerful presence of women, participants reported the systemic violations and threats they are facing, including harassment, forced evictions to create protected areas, the commodification of forests along with the advance of extractive projects. The conference concluded with the formation of the All India Forum of Forest Movements in order to, among others, support the growing resistance against harmful projects and build community governance over forests.