"Mining and the energy transition are two sides of the same coin,” August 6, 2025

The challenge of the “energy transition” has increasingly occupied debates in Brazil and around the world, with governments and companies adopting sustainability narratives. However, very little is seen in terms of concrete actions that actually protect the planet. On the contrary, many initiatives carried out in the name of combating climate change have generated social and environmental harms.

Recently, there has been growing international pressure on Brazil to pursue a “just energy transition.” But what kind of transition are we talking about, and who is it meant for? According to various researchers, what is happening is not truly a transition, but rather an expansion of the energy sector or a diversification of energy supply.

Hundreds of communities in the Brazilian Amazon are being affected by mining projects that promise development that will never be experienced by the people who live there. These ventures primarily extract iron, but also bauxite, niobium, gold, nickel, copper, and other minerals, now rebranded under the narrative of the global energy transition.

“We are not talking about an energy transition; we are talking about energy expansion. The older forms of energy production will continue to exist. The creation of new energy sources does not mean that the existing ones will be abandoned,” says Charles Trocate of the Movement for Popular Sovereignty in Mining, in an interview with the authors.

We therefore observe the Amazon being treated as a huge market for easy profit, a view rooted in colonial times: the region perceived as pristine nature without people, a reservoir of inexhaustible resources, and now essential to “saving the planet” from climate change. And its diverse peoples are denied even the right to self‑define.