Transformative Environmental Justice – the Case of Sápmi

This presentation focuses on two specific sites of ongoing green colonialism in Sápmi – the electrification of the Melkøya gas processing plant in Northern Norway and the planned extraction of rare-earth minerals in Northern Sweden – to highlight and discuss the consequences and struggles for justice of the local Sámi population.

Climate mitigation measures often fail to include small countries, Indigenous people, and local citizens by not incorporating their social systems, values, and ways of knowing in policy development. This contrasts with the principle of Nordic openness traditionally followed in Nordic political culture by engaging stakeholders in public policy implementation. Current power imbalances and unequal representation make a just energy transition extremely challenging.

A just transition by greening the Nordics in an equitable way through democratic engagement and citizen involvement has pushed its way into mainstream environmental debates, policy discourses, and is now a feature of Nordic strategies. However, policy debates have been criticized for framing the process in a technomanagerial manner. A legitimate and just decision-making process for the energy transition anticipates a representative system centering public engagement and the deliberation of all stakeholders, regionally, and across borders aligned with the Nordic aspiration to include all citizens in the green transition. The Transformative Environmental Justice research project aspires to bring the voices of indigenous communities in Sápmi into the Nordic green transition strategy debate. The project investigates forms of democratic engagement with the explicit aim of balancing the unequal distribution of power between Indigenous communities and powerful stakeholders in formulating key policies toward fossil-free energy production in the region. We strive to understand how Indigenous communities’ struggles for environmental justice may inform the Nordic approach to green transition into a holistic understanding of environmental justice informed by community-based and decolonial action.