The Green Economy

The corporate lies behind the ever-increasing expansion of industrial tree plantations.

On the eve of the International Day of Struggle against Tree Monocultures, we invite you to participate in the webinar “Tree Plantations, Carbon Markets and Resistances”. It will be on Friday 20th September.

This briefing provides an overview of the expansion of tree plantations aimed at carbon markets. Where are these plantations located, who is profiting from them, what have been the impacts for communities living on the lands these projects occupy, and what international initiatives are taking place to boost tree plantations for carbon offsetting.

By Larry Lohmann, The Corner House.

This compilation of articles from WRM aims to expose the myths of the green economy and the many lies propagated by corporations and major conservation NGOs.

The new report from GRAIN shows how IT corporations like Meta, Microsoft and Amazon are turning to carbon markets to hide their ballooning greenhouse gas emissions, caused in large part by the industry’s push for increasing use of energy-heavy AI and cloud computing. GRAIN’s research looks at how in particular Amazon and the USD 10 billion Bezos Earth Fund set up by Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos don’t stop at just buying carbon credits. Both are involved in creating the infrastructure to produce carbon credits.

The Norwegian government through its state Pension Fund, has been a key investor in REDD-type projects, including monoculture tree plantations. Norway joined back in 2000 the World Bank´s Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) that helped the Plantar company in Brazil to expand its eucalyptus plantations to profit from selling carbon credits.

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 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.

Wildlife Works company (WWC) wants to carry out a carbon project in the Brazilian Amazon. But the Ka'apor indigenous people in resistance don’t want to turn nature into a commodity. Support this petition for the authorities to ban the company from operating in the Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Land.