The economy works in a series of cycles. Be they short (according to Joseph Kitchin), medium (as per Clément Juglar), or long (as Nikolai Kondratieff declared), periods of recovery, of creation, of boom and bust, or of destruction follow one another. The cycle begins anew, in infinite loops that are never quite the same.

Similarly, the just and green transition faces its own distinct historical cycles. Since environmental awareness emerged as a political movement in the 1960s and 1970s, it has gone from being an outsider issue for socially conscious minorities to becoming – following the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, the focal point of the socio-political mainstream. Today, however, mercilessly besieged by resurgent imperialisms whose interests align with those of fossil fuel capitalism, the transition faces an enormous backlash. It is waging an fierce struggle against the “fossil fuel empire”, gasping for air so that the existential threat that it currently faces does not turn into destruction. But how can the just transition withstand this backlash and consolidate itself within the new world (dis)order? And, how can it defeat the fossil fuel empire?

The birth of a new hegemony

2015 was no ordinary year in our recent history. On 12 December of that year, the Paris Agreement was unanimously adopted at COP21. Although it was by no means a perfect climate accord, by enshrining in an international treaty the 1.5°C global warming limit that humanity must not exceed, this agreement marked a turning point in climate action. The Paris Accords were driven by a broad coalition of aligned nations (the Pacific Islands, the EU, Obama’s United States, etc.), a Vatican motivated by Pope Francis’ Laudato si’, and a civil society keen to turn the page on the failed COP15 summit in Copenhagen.

2015 represented the start of a new cycle in which climate was no longer a subordinate and secondary issue but the centre of media attention, a political and social priority, and the new driving force behind an emerging economy centred on the transition and on renewables. Put another way, the year marks the start of a period with a profound capacity for structural transformation and for reshaping collective principles, guided by the climate narrative in public opinion, institutions, and the business world: climate cultural hegemony.

After years of recession and social and economic austerity, this shift in hegemony had a tremendous impact on several fronts. On the one hand, activism played a key role in the cultural and social dynamics in favour of climate action, thanks to the quantitative and qualitative presence of the youth climate movement. Behind Greta Thunberg, the central figure of the climate movement – someone with an almost messianic quality and a source of global inspiration for an entire generation – lay an unprecedented visibility of the climate cause in the media and on the streets. This movement positioned the climate as an existential issue – for young people and any group or nation directly suffering its impacts – and a matter of the highest socio-political priority. As hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets of Berlin, Brussels, Melbourne, New York, Vancouver, and Madrid in 2019, the climate cause seeped into the recesses of European and global collective consciousness.

2015 represented the start of a new cycle in which climate was no longer a subordinate and secondary issue.

Following the path opened by Paris, activism began to reflect on in politics and institutions. On 5 December, 2016, the Darebin in Australia became the first city in the world to declare a “climate emergency”. In May 2019, the UK Parliament became the first national parliament to do so, while Spain officially followed suit following a cabinet decision in January 2020. To date, nearly 2,400 local authorities across 40 countries, covering a population of up to one billion citizens, have declared a climate emergency, making climate change one of the top political priorities in the years following 2015. Inevitably, this social and institutional visibility also had its impact at the ballot box: in the 2019 European elections, riding and simultaneously pushing the climate wave, Green parties achieved a historic result, securing more than 80 seats and transforming their eco-social agenda into a driving force within the European Parliament.

This, in turn, triggered greater environmental momentum. Under the combined pressure of activists on the street and of voters, and despite the fact that it was not even part of the European People’s Party’s electoral priorities at the time, the newly appointed European Commission under the first presidency of the conservative Ursula Von der Leyen, put its main response on the table: the Green New Deal,or the European Green Deal. The debate no longer revolved around whether or not we needed a climate policy, but rather the level of ambition it should have. Although the deal fell short of what the environmental movement and scientific community were calling for, it was far ahead of anything proposed by other geopolitical blocs. The EU established itself as a climate leader, committing to reducing its emissions by at least 50 per cent by 2030, whilst making the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 legally binding.

What is more, all European policies – whether in energy, industry, or agriculture – were required to integrate or align, at least in spirit, with climate priorities. In this climate-friendly environment, the economy felt the winds of change from the energy transition and sustainability, the cornerstones of post-Paris business. The end of coal mining in Spain and its phasing out across Europe, the accelerated roll-out of renewable energy, the boom in electric cars, the decarbonisation of industry, and the greening of agriculture: the green economy and green jobs experienced a golden age, whilst the just transition was gaining ground. Paris, the youth climate movement, and the electorate made their mark; climate cultural hegemony was at its zenith.

But every golden age comes to an end, and every high-water mark is followed by a decline. The first blow came from Covid-19. The health crisis, along with its lockdowns, brought the “climate generation” to a screeching halt, and since 2020, there has not been another mass climate demonstration. Despite depriving it of one of its most powerful means of expressing itself, the pandemic did not stop the European Green Deal from becoming the EU’s guiding light. On top of that, thanks to the social and political capital accumulated in previous years, and despite the emerging opposition from the radical right in Hungary and Poland or the anti-climate presidency of Trump’s first administration, the green transition was established as one of the pillars of the NextGenerationEU Recovery Funds. Of the 275 billion euros in capital investment, 42 per cent of the funds were to be allocated to tackling the climate crisis. This represented a tangible investment in the great transformation from a fossil fuel system to a renewable one.

But soon after the first blow of the pandemic came a second one in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Apart from exposing Putin’s imperialist ambitions and Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, the war also triggered a surge in energy prices and the cost of living, in turn fuelling social unrest. Reactionary and denialist forces smelt blood. The European Green Deal was still alive, but through the wounds of the pandemic and war in Ukraine, the anti-climate and anti-ecological transition narrative was seeping in, establishing itself as a key pillar of the fossil fuel backlash.

The empire strikes back

Whether at the political, cultural or economic level, we have entered a new cycle: that of the ecological backlash, countering progress on environmental issues. It is the era of the crusade against and relentless attack on a just transition, as the empire of dirty energy and its political network make every possible attempt to reinforce their foothold. In other words, fossil fuel capitalism, in collaboration with a reactionary and denialist international movement, has declared a war –  an almost holy war – against ecological progress in all its forms.

While environmental activists are branded as “terrorists” or “climate fanatics” and climate change is, according to Trump, nothing more than “a hoax”, green policies are constantly under fire from climate-sceptic and far-right organisations. Alongside immigration, they have made the Green New Deal their enemy to be defeated in Spain, Brussels, and internationally. They portray, against all evidence, environmental policies as responsible for the more than 200 deaths caused by the 2025 storm in Valencia. They also attack renewables every day, whether during the 2025 blackout on the Iberian Peninsula or by fuelling local opposition to wind and solar energy.

In this context of constant disinformation and attacks, where the far right provokes and the Right reaps the rewards (and part of the Left flirts with reactionary attitudes towards it), ecological setbacks are rife within institutions. For example, in Europe, where the dividing line between conservatives and neo-fascists has been growing increasingly thin since the 2024 European elections,¹ environmental commitments have been scaled back. This includes sustainability requirements in the Common Agricultural Policy, as well as environmental restrictions for large companies and the ambition to phase out fossil-fuelled cars.

At the same time, environmental deregulation – which allows for more products that are harmful to nature and health but economically competitive and good for the coffers of large multinationals – is gaining momentum. What is more, in an Orwellian move, the US Government, having once again withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and from any international political or scientific institution fighting for climate action, has even banned the terms “climate change” and “emissions” in federal agencies and official national documents. This includes revising educational programmes. Beyond politics, the cultural battle is all-out.

The ecological backlash is proving to be an attempt at a fossil fuel restoration in the face of the 21st-century renewable energy revolution.

After years of climate hegemony, the backlash has been and continues to be inversely proportional to the progress of the ecological transition in recent years. Indeed, just as the restoration of the monarchy was a response to re-establish the interests of the nobility in the face of revolutionary and republican ideas in the 19th century, the ecological backlashis proving to be an attempt at a fossil fuel restoration in the face of the 21st-century renewable energy revolution. This is an unmistakable sign that the just ecological transition has hit a nerve. For fossil fuel capitalism, the ecological transition was tolerable as long as it remained sectoral and socio-economically marginal. But today it has become a major obstacle to its businesses, which are currently worth 97 trillion dollars – almost as much as global Gross Domestic Product. It also represents a threat to part of the global elite and population whose way of life and values, based on fossil fuels and the fantasy of unlimited growth in production and consumption, remain non-negotiable.

In this regard, the 2025 US National Security Strategy (NSS) is emblematic of the attempt to return to the fossil fuel-based world order. As well as reverting to imperialist ideological and geopolitical doctrines based on hard power and spheres of influence, authoritarianism, and Western supremacism, the document does not beat about the bush or use euphemisms. In opposition to “the disastrous ideologies of ‘climate change’ and ‘net zero’”, its aim is to “restore US energy dominance (in oil, gas, coal and nuclear power)” and “expand US access to critical minerals and materials”. In this context, the military operation in early 2026 in Venezuela has been the US’s first test of ideological hegemony and control over natural resources within its sphere of influence. Emboldened by the apparent success of this strategy, Trumpist imperialism has stepped up the pace, attempting to subdue the Iranian regime as well, which, incidentally, controls the Strait of Hormuz through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil and gas passes.

But this process of political, territorial, and energy neo-colonisation is not confined solely to the US’s historical enemies; Europe is also in its crosshairs. As the NSS argues that the “US objective must be to help Europe correct its current course” through “patriotic parties” – now veritable Trojan horses of this neo-imperialism within the EU – we are witnessing, live and in plain sight, external interference in European internal affairs. In the ideological vision of the reactionary international, the European Union project is superfluous. Despite the EU’s contradictions and double standards in international conflicts, the reactionary right has no need for its founding values based on international law, multilateralism, cooperation and continental solidarity. And, aligning their interests with those of fossil fuel capital, they have no need for the EU’s commitment to the energy transition.

Inevitably, the energy transition clashes with fossil fuel imperialism. Beyond calling into question the enormous profits of the fossil fuel sector, it also reshuffles the geopolitical deck. Whilst the US, Russia and the Gulf states base much of their power on their position as the world’s leading oil producers, the EU – but above all China, the new great power of green capitalism – has accelerated the shift towards renewables. In this new “ecological Cold War”, the marked differences are becoming increasingly acute between the old petro-states that do not want to die and the aspiring electro-states that have not yet been born.

In this sense, those who commit to the energy transition are, in effect, committing to reducing their dependence on fossil-fuel capitalism – whether corporate or state-led – and to strengthening their sovereignty in all its dimensions in the face of imperialism, whether Trumpist or Putinist.² For Europe, therefore, in addition to all the ethical and climate-related reasons inherited from the Paris Agreement, which are as relevant today as they were in 2015, the ecological transition can also be viewed politically as a powerful tool of sovereignty against fossil fuel vassalage. Turning Europe into an electro-continent and its member states into electro-states is one of the central pillars of global geopolitics in the coming years.

For Europe, the ecological transition can also be viewed politically as a powerful tool of sovereignty against fossil fuel vassalage.

Eco-socialism in the new world (dis)order

Looking ahead, we are witnessing a profound shift in the underlying logic of the just transition. Since the Paris Agreement, this was the executive arm of “climate cultural hegemony”, driven above all by ethical and solidarity-based motives of caring for the planet, future generations, or the Pacific islands. Today, however, the energy transition is taking place mainly in Europe for geopolitical reasons of national and continental sovereignty. Through the electrification of everything everywhere – the still-emerging “electric hegemony” – the energy transition is being reframed within an “independence versus empire” context. Without abandoning the progress of the previous decade, this new landscape compels all actors to rethink their vision, strategies, and alliances.

Yet there is a trap that we must avoid. It is true that climate action is no longer an end in itself, but rather a possible consequence of the quest for sovereignty, yet this does not detract in the slightest from the climate emergency. The environmental reasons for a transition remain as relevant as ever, if not more so, in the face of the serious and ongoing global warming that is causing ever-increasing social, economic, labour, and environmental devastation. Downplaying it, prioritising competitiveness over sustainability, deregulating and dismantling the European Green Deal under pressure from certain economic sectors, or treating issues of sovereignty and climate in a non-complementary manner would be grave errors and own goals.³

Today, the energy transition is doubly urgent. Added to the climate emergency is the urgency of building sovereignty through the transition. The latter does not replace the former; both are equally relevant and are two sides of the same coin. Any backtracking on climate policy represents a short-term gain for competitiveness and a long-term loss for sovereignty and resilience.

Furthermore, given that we face both climate and geopolitical emergencies there is a need for Europe, to push towards the energy transition swiftly and at a large scale. Whilst they remain important, the time has passed for confining ourselves to think tanks and the “small is beautiful” ethos of the 1970s. Fighting the tide of climate denial and – as wars in Ukraine and Iran drive up the price of the fossil fuels on which we still so heavily depend – speeding up the energy transition requires greater political, industrial, and social impetus. This should come through major public and private investment, reducing energy demand, and rapidly transforming mass consumption to make it renewable and sustainable. As activist and reporter Gorka Laurnaga suggests, “If climate change [and, I would add, geopolitics] is a macro-problem, it cannot be solved with micro-responses.”

To this end, it is essential to overcome the contradictions of the energy transition at a local level, where alliances between a romanticised view of the countryside and agriculture, nimbyism, doomsday thinking, and climate denialism are hindering the renewable energy projects needed for these new times. There is no room for leniency towards unscrupulous multinationals or local corruption, and participatory and environmental safeguards should be vehemently upheld. Such an effort should include committing to socio-economic and employment benefits for affected communities, so that no land is sacrificed and the transition is fair. Although it is good to strive for aesthetic and cultural harmony, and the large-scale and massive is not necessarily beautiful, large projects like these will save lives in the face of the major climate and geopolitical challenges of today and the coming decades.

However, for the energy transition to take place, essential raw materials are also needed. Whether we are talking about lithium, cobalt, or rare earth minerals,⁴ all these materials are used in batteries, wind turbines, solar panels, or heat pumps and are essential for Europe’s electrification and decarbonisation. However, 10 out of 26 critical raw materials are entirely imported from outside the EU, and none of the rare earths used in the EU are processed internally. In other words, the bloc is highly dependent on third countries – especially China – for access to or the processing of critical raw materials essential to its energy transition. Without strategic resources directly exploited and controlled throughout the entire value chain by the EU, strategic autonomy is an empty slogan and the energy transition as a vehicle for sovereignty is a pipe dream.

In addition to a structural and long-term reorientation of production and consumption in post-growth terms as well as a firm industrial commitment to the recycling of raw materials, this also entails an inevitable relocation of extraction to European territory. On the road towards decarbonisation, we cannot expect to maintain high levels of welfare and public services and bring about a successful ecological transition unless we relocate closer to home some of the negative impacts of our way of life. These impacts are currently outsourced to countries with lighter social, labour and environmental protections. There can be no sovereignty without a minimum level of extraction on European soil. What matters is that this is done in accordance with democratic rules, strict limits, social, climate, and biodiversity protections, and humane labour conditions. It must also bring benefits for the local populations involved.

Today, the energy transition is doubly urgent. Added to the climate emergency is the urgency of building sovereignty through the transition.

Sovereignty through alliance

At the same time, sovereignty is never absolute. Even though globalisation is undergoing severe turbulence, there are and will continue to be many economic, social, and ecological interdependencies in the coming decades in a highly interconnected world. To avoid falling into energy vassalage under the US, Russia, or the Gulf states, Europe must commit to further diversifying its strategic alliances. As spheres of influence return, diversification should involve the staunch defence of multilateralism and the ability to strike agreements of various kinds with different countries, with a central focus on energy and raw materials.

When production or recycling is not possible in Europe, the EU should never be reliant on a single source. Let Russian gas or the political unreliability of the United States serve as a lesson. One condition should always be clear: bilateral agreements should be built under the umbrella of the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the International Labour Organization, and the 2030 Agenda, and necessitate the same labour and environmental standards in the country of production as in Europe.

Beyond that, we need to reflect deeply on our complex relationship with China. The Asian giant, which controls much of the rare earths needed for renewable energy, has become a driving force behind the green transition. The rapid electrification of its economy and industry potentially puts it on a path to becoming an “electro-state”. It is a central player in the ecological transition and an indispensable partner in countering the fossil fuel empire. Like it or not, at climate summits and beyond, the global climate coalition must go through China. At the same time, as well as being a deeply authoritarian and repressive state, China is a fierce competitor with the capacity to undermine large parts of Europe’s ecological transition by flooding the markets with its overproduction. This applied a decade ago with solar panels, and it applies now with electric cars or batteries.

Ultimately, with China, the aim is to strike a dynamic balance between a firm defence of European economic sovereignty – our “Made inEurope” green transition – and our democratic values, whilst at the same time opening up and strengthening channels of geopolitical and commercial collaboration to support and drive the global fight against climate change.

Without strategic resources directly exploited and controlled by the EU, strategic autonomy is an empty slogan and the energy transition as a vehicle for sovereignty is a pipe dream.

But the question of alliances also arises at a domestic level. Considering the green transition not merely as an ethical-climate issue but also as a matter of geopolitics and sovereignty can help us broaden the range of political alliances to achieve it. Alongside the usual progressive and environmentalist partners (parties, trade unions, NGOs, businesses, etc.), there are liberal currents with a strong pro-European and supranationalist ideology, as well as other conservative and patriotic currents, with a strong emphasis on the state and fierce protection of their homeland. In fact, the prospect of colonisation and external interference represents a serious ideological rift for some European nationalist-denialist currents, turning their worldview into a “confused patriotism”. By vehemently opposing the Green New Dealand, in doing so, defending the fossil fuel empire politically and economically, they create a profound internal contradiction: one can hardly defend one’s homeland whilst simultaneously selling it to foreign powers and becoming mere vassals to them. Whilst we clearly need to put our finger on the nationalist-denialist sore spot, it is time to strengthen traditional alliances centred on the ethical-climate axis and forge more uncomfortable ones, this time centred on the energy sovereignty axis.

This is not the time to remain self-absorbed. Beyond defending what has been achieved over the last decade, we must now adapt to the new context and strategically reposition ourselves to regain the initiative. For the sake of sustainability and sovereignty, the just transition can and must win the cultural and political battle against the fossil fuel empire.

This article was originally published in Spanish in the magazine Gaceta Sindical. Reflexión y Debate (CCOO), Issue 42, May 2026. It is republished here with permission.

Translated by Albie Mills |Voxeurop

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1. For example, in 2025, the European People’s Party broke through the cordon sanitaire surrounding the environmental sustainability of large corporations in the European Parliament for the first time. See: https://elpais.com/internacional/2025-11-23/el-acercamiento-de-la-derecha-a-los-ultras-tensa-la-cuerda-en-bruselas.html ↩︎
2. The similarities between Putin and Trump, beyond the political currents they represent, are becoming increasingly evident. Ideologically, they are defenders of “traditional values”, rooted in a Christian and white world that must be saved from decline, with an obsession against the LGBT community and feminism, whilst in political practice they systematically employ lies and contempt for liberal and parliamentary democracy. ↩︎
3. Let us not confuse simplification with deregulation. Whilst it is always possible to improve administrative efficiency by simplifying processes and laws (for example, for SMEs), this is not the same as deregulation, the aim of which is to weaken legal safeguards, almost always in favour of big business. ↩︎
4. These 17 chemical elements are in fact metal oxides that are insoluble in water; in the 18th century, the term “earth” was used to refer to oxides. Many are not in fact “rare” elements (they may even be more abundant than lead or copper) but are classified as “rare” because it is very uncommon to find them in a pure form. ↩︎