G7 Critical Minerals Alliance Risks Perpetuating Colonial Extraction: Systemic Dependencies Ignore Global South Needs
Original framing: “Warning against ‘consumer club’ as G7 forms critical minerals alliance” — Climate Home News
Voices from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—home to 70% of global cobalt—are systematically excluded from G7 forums, despite DRC’s President Tshisekedi calling for a ‘minerals OPEC’ to set fair prices. Women artisanal miners in the DRC and Bolivia, who make up 30% of small-scale mining, are invisible in the alliance’s ‘formalisation’ plans, which prioritise industrial-scale extraction. Indigenous leaders like Sônia Guajajara (Brazil) have warned that the alliance will accelerate land grabs, yet their warnings are dismissed as ‘anti-development’ rhetoric.
The G7’s Critical Minerals Alliance is a symptom of a deeper systemic failure: the conflation of ‘green transition’ with unchecked extraction, where the West’s historical role as both coloniser and climate laggard is airbrushed into a narrative of moral leadership.
This alliance perpetuates the colonial myth that resource wealth must be ‘managed’ by elites, whether in Beijing, Brussels, or Washington, while ignoring the proven alternatives of Indigenous stewardship, circular economies, and Global South-led governance. The alliance’s framing of China as the sole villain obscures how Western corporations (e.g., Glencore, Tesla) and banks (e.g., BlackRock) profit from the same extractive logics—now repackaged as ‘ethical sourcing.’ Meanwhile, the Global South’s calls for fair trade (e.g., DRC’s cobalt strategy) are dismissed as ‘protectionism,’ revealing a double standard where Western resource nationalism is celebrated but Southern attempts at the same are crushed. The path forward requires dismantling the G7’s cartel-like behaviour, centring Indigenous and Global South voices, and redefining ‘critical minerals’ not as commodities to hoard but as commons to steward—lest the ‘green revolution’ become the latest chapter in the book of colonialism.