WIND POWER - In the Name of the Climate:Critical Mapping

In the Name of the Climate:Critical Mapping was conducted by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (RLF) and the Graduate Program in Social Science on Development, Agriculture, and Society (CPDA) of the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ).
The first part of the investigation aimed to map and critically analyze the energy transition processes presented by businesses and governments to solve the global climate crisis.
The second part of the study mapped 107 private projects that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked with deforestation and forest degradation in Brazil. The study introduces the main contradictions and issues of the continuously expanding market (whether voluntary or regulated).
WIND POWER
In the name of the climate, businesses and governments use a green rhetoric to advance into territories and communities. Brazil is currently ranked sixth globally in installed capacity of onshore wind power. The new threat is the offshore wind projects, which have not been implemented in the country because there are no laws on the matter yet. As new farms are set up, the number of reports of human rights violations increases. Conflicts start even before implementation, during the planning stage, which leads to uncertainty among communities. While on the one hand we need to invest in changing our energy grid, on the other we cannot overlook the fact that wind farms have been leading to increasing environmental conflicts. In the state of Ceará, farms set up in permanent preservation areas affect dune fields, which increases the risk of contamination and burial of aquifers and of sand migration to residential areas. Communities located near farms report “territories of fear,” areas where danger of death and escape route signs have been set up. Not only that, there is also the impact on local residents’ health. If a transition is not made in the name of the peoples, it is not a just, social, ecological energy transition.