EU’s twin transition in crisis: green extractivism, militarisation and civil society’s role

What is the ‘twin transition’ paradigm?

The “twin transition” paradigm, pushed forward in recent years by institutions such as those within the European Union and the United Nations, considers digitisation and environmental sustainability to be two mutually reinforcing processes. The idea is that technologies can be made green or clean; and that, in turn, investment into so-called green or clean technologies can accelerate the arrival of a more sustainable society. Some notable green technologies at the forefront of the “twin transition”’ are AI, digital twins, satellite tech, batteries and electric vehicles as well as wind turbines and heat turbines.

Some issues with “twin transition”

The “twin transition” paradigm is problematic on several fronts. While many of the green technologies mentioned above have a place in sustainability transitions, they will only compound a range of existing harms without a broader socioeconomic shift away from limitless growth.Climate and environmental justice movements around the world argue that the techno-solutionist focus of this transition strategy props up discourses of climate delay and distraction, and avoids the tackling of structural issues. All of this is contributing to “green extractivism”, continued colonialism, and Eurocentrism in the fight against the climate crises.

Furthermore, we’ve seen the twin transition paradigm recently being co-opted, with politicians and policy makers stepping back from meaningful commitments on European Green Deal spending, and doubling down on digitalisation and European industrial policy instead. With this shift, the “twin transition” started encompassing everything that has the potential to be made sustainable or digitalised. Funds meant for the climate and digital transitions are increasingly diverted towards building the military industrial complex, contributing to the securitisation of the “twin transition” phenomena and climate governance more broadly.

The role of technology in the context of EU’s emerging industrial policies and nascent commitments to securitisation has been described as “digitalising the EU’s security project” and “cementing the infrastructural power of tech companies.” The resulting critical dependencies cause social, environmental and economic harms that threaten democracy itself.

This political shift makes for an important moment to consider what meaningful climate action looks like going forward at both an EU level and beyond. What is civil society’s role to play amidst these shifting political paradigms?

About the session: goals, facilitators, participants

In June 2024, we, Andreea Belu at EDRi and Becky Kazansky at The University of Amsterdam, facilitated a session at Mozfest in Amsterdam to unpack the assumptions that the “twin transition” is based on. Our goal was to build a critical understanding of how digital rights advocates and practitioners coming from a background in digital technologies can productively engage on this nexus of issues.

In our workshop we challenged existing assumptions on three levels:

1. the logic of green technologies;
2. the use cases of green technologies, and;
3. the resourcing of materials needed for green technologies.

Through collaborative brainstorming we asked : who benefits from the twin transition and who pays the price? Finally, we mapped examples of transnational solidarity among digital, climate justice groups that can inspire field-building moving forward.

For us as facilitators, this was an opportunity to collaborate.  Outside EDRi, Andreea’s research with the Green Web Foundation focuses on investigating how the concepts of “strategic autonomy” and “economic security” moved the public discourse around “twin transition” towards the military domain. Within EDRi, Andreea leads, among other things, the research process for the network’s next long term 2025-2029 strategy. This builds on previously commissioned work by EDRi and Madhuri Karak on locating climate justice in EU digital rights, as well as discussions at the Tech and Society Summit in October 2024.

In 2022, Becky led collaborative research exploring the intersections of digital rights and climate justice with The Engine Room and the Green Screen Coalition. Her current advocacy and research explores how digital rights and tech justice advocates can support the climate justice movement to push back against dangerous and misleading climate ‘solutions’ such as solar geoengineering and carbon offsets,. Big Tech companies have recently invested into these ‘solutions’ in recent years to make claims about climate friendliness even as they walk back from meaningful climate commitments in pursuit of market dominance in AI.

The Mozfest session was attended by 20 people coming from diverse fields and regions. The group consisted of technologists, advocates, researchers, designers, artists and fundersfrom the Philippines, Europe, the US, and North Africa..

Main points of debate around the ‘twin transition’

1. The logic of green technologies
   When exploring the logics of green technologies, attendees recognised the limitations of techno-solutionism to address climate and environmental crises. These limitations prompted attendees to refer to “externalised harms” and “collateral damage” when discussing them, with a strong majority agreeing that those suffering from the pitfalls of green technologies (resource extraction, economic inequalities etc), and the sustainability transition more broadly, are marginalised communities and Global Majority countries, who’ve historically contributed the least to climate and environmental crises.
2. Resourcing materials for green technologies
   Secondly, we looked at how the push for so-called “green” and “clean” tech is leading to an ever-greater demand for critical minerals at the EU level. This is leading to concerns around the portrayed “green extractivist” nature of mining and an expressed need by both states and industries to “secure” technological supply chains. We noted that the need for critical minerals feeds into narratives of securitisation, and colonialism with implications for human rights, digital rights, and social justice.
3. Use cases for green technologies
   We looked at the phenomena of digitalising military tech as a commitment to sustainability, often found in the green agendas of entities such as NATO. We debated the use of civilian technologies for military purposes, questioning the type of power grabs happening at infrastructural level, and the actors involved in building and deploying military technologies. We noted the role of the war in Ukraine and Gaza in bringing security and military on the political agenda. An important point was around the need to move beyond policy conversations and scrutinise public and private investments, public-private partnerships as well as research and development projects.

Moving forward:civil society’s role amidst shifting political paradigms?

We spent time envisioning how to work towards a more just approach to technologies in the context of climate and environmental crises. We did so bylooking at examples of how social movements and policy makers around the world are already fighting for a truly just transition while empowering each other.

A critical question for cross-border solidarity is how to avoid cases where local activism to push out extractive projects (see: resistance against the construction of new hyperscale data centers in Global North countries like the Netherlands) results in Big Tech companies setting up shop elsewhere, thereby perpetuating cycles of colonialism and environmental harm. Examples of solidarity included connections between the fight against lithium mining in Serbia and other anti-mining struggles in the Global Majority; links made between the fight against pollution in electric vehicle manufacturing in Germany and anti-mining struggles in Chile; the permacomputing movement, the “No Tech for apartheid” campaign, and global fablabs and repair culture. While these stories of solidarity are rooted in specific local struggles, their problems and demands are situated at the systemic level.

Our discussion was vivid but our time was limited. We left the Mozfest community tent happy to have found each other, with a list of questions to carry forward in our work – both at EDRi and in the broader digital rights/climate justice field. Some of these questions were:

• What kinds of new narratives can guide the production and use of technologies, which are compatible with post-extractivist vision of society?
• How can an imperative for de-growth facilitate our collective demands for tech that benefits people, the planet and democracy?
• How can we, as a field,account for de-growth calls aimed at the Global Majority space, that fail to acknowledge Global North’s main responsibility for over-consumption?
• Who are the actors supplying green and military technologies? What forums do they meet in?
• How can we demand action for climate that cannot be co-opted for security / military gains?
• What conditions does the field need, to build power across struggles, territories, and theories of change at the intersection of green extractivism and militarisation?

Contribution by: Andreea Belu, EDRi, and Becky Kazansky, University of Amsterdam