this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2025
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It's not greenwashing to use renewable energy, lmao.
Just keep in mind that renewable energy is not really implemented for sustainability, but mainly for profit. Also, due to capitalism the energy consumption keeps increasing. Take a look at this chart. Oil energy consumption keeps increasing, coal has not plateaued yet - none of them is decreasing for sure. So far, there is no renewable energy transition because renewable energy is just being added, it does not replace energy coming from extractive industries.
It is equally important to keep our eyes open to how renewable projects are legislated and executed, and in the same time continue to evolve them. This evolution should take into consideration things like habitat disruptions (earth, sea, air), mining, wastes produced, to name just a few.
Try searching for the correct charts. You are talking about global prime energy consumption and it makes sense that this is growing in a world with a growing population, enormous economic growth in China and India and so on.
But if you take a look at Europe: Primary energy consumption has been sinking since 2006 from 18,997 TWh to 15,662TWh in 2023:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-cons?tab=chart&country=OWID_EU27%7EOWID_AFR
The share of fossil fuels is also decreasing:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fossil-fuels-share-energy?tab=chart&country=%7EOWID_EU27
So this does work.
Take a look at the article!
I've actually read the Greenpeace report the article is based on and that doesn't mention your point.
https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-mena-stateless/2025/02/ce97182f-beyond-extractivism_-towards-a-feminist-and-just-economic-transition-in-morocco-and-egypt-report-eng.pdf
It is actually really a strange report:
I'm not sure why Greenpeace came to this while talking about projects that are building solar farms in the desert.
Ok. Well, I suppose if you read this summary and still wonder, I don't think I can say something in a few sentences to make its content more clear.
I know what they are saying. I just don't think that building a solar farm in Morocco is really colonialist and would push them to still use fossil fuels as claimed. Go to google maps, search for those projects mentioned in the Guardian article and they are being build in the literal desert with enough space around:
https://www.google.com/maps/search/Noor+3+solar+power+station,+Ouarzazate/@31.0343835,-6.8871281,12839m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDIxOS4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
However the article is claiming:
But why?
I asked you to read the article to make obvious why some charts for Europe are actually kinda rigged. (Edit: Energy consumption from fossil fuel may look "good" for europe, but at what cost for other places) And btw, it was not by mistake that I used the global chart. So from the article:
I thought I would be clear why it is so bad to do these projects where water is scarce. From the article
In relation to your question but why?, for me the answer is the rest of the article and from the summary you mentioned in the following sections which I will not copy-paste:
Extractivism and Neocolonialism in the Global South
Morocco and Egypt: From extractivism to green colonialism
I'm sorry, I don't know what else to say.
Yeah, and I'm talking about solar farms, which do not use any water at all. Maybe some to clean the panels, but that is exactly my issue here: The article is throwing stuff together that really doesn't belong together. Buying gas from Egypt is different than building a solar farm or building industrial hydrogen plants or importing agricultural products.