Research: Green Investments Divide Northern Regions

New research shows how historical colonial patterns are being repeated as global capital seeks green investment opportunities in Arctic regions in the Nordic countries. Pressure is mounting to build everything from wind farms to data centers in peripheral areas. These projects raise opposition and divide communities.

The Nordic research project Peripheral Visions: When Global Agendas Meet Nordic Energy Peripheries has examined how global agendas for the green transition affect communities in Arctic regions, which are considered key to the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

The research, which focused on Greenland and northern Sweden and Finland, highlights how the energy transition is being driven by international climate policy and global capital seeking profitable investments in green energy solutions. Municipalities in the north are often presented with fully developed plans for large infrastructure or industrial projects that have been designed elsewhere, with little connection to the communities affected.

“This often leads to opposition becoming reactive and locally focused, without presenting an alternative vision of how the transition should be carried out,” says project leader Erland Mårald.

As a result, when affected groups or municipalities protest or attempt to veto proposed projects, their objections can easily be dismissed as Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) attitudes.

Dividing Different Groups

According to the researchers, such opposition should be understood against the backdrop of a long history in which land and natural resources in northern peripheral regions have been exploited to meet needs elsewhere. National governments have, among other things, made decisions to dam rivers for energy production, and today global capital is searching for attractive green energy investment opportunities.

Mårald points out that the rapid changes created by the global financial market also make it more difficult for local communities to take a proactive role in shaping development.

“There is intense activity among interconnected financiers and industrial actors, where the focus has rapidly shifted between wind power, battery manufacturing, green steel, mining, hydrogen and, most recently, data centers. These rapid shifts make it difficult for both affected communities and local and national policymakers to keep up.”

Researcher Hanna Lempinen has, as part of the project, studied attitudes toward wind power in northern Finland and Sweden.

“One of the main reasons for opposition to wind power projects in these regions is the perception that the benefits and profits are generated elsewhere, while local communities are left to bear the negative consequences.”

Lempinen emphasizes, however, that even where protests emerge, opposition is rarely unified. On the contrary, large-scale energy projects can divide municipalities and create conflicts between supporters and opponents of the projects.

For this reason, Lempinen calls for strategic thinking from municipalities in the northern regions.

“Municipalities should develop their own energy strategies. At present, individual projects are planned and advanced according to where they happen to fall on a company’s investment list, without any overall perspective,” says Lempinen.

Not Just a Technological Issue

One of the study’s conclusions is that the energy transition is not merely a technological issue. Instead, it should be treated as a far-reaching societal transformation in which affected communities are involved from the outset in planning and decision-making processes.

At present, the focus is often on removing the “obstacles” perceived to be standing in the way of a necessary development. These obstacles may include spontaneous protests, the rights of reindeer herders, concerns raised by researchers, or democratic decisions by individual municipalities to reject projects.

“But perhaps it is precisely these ‘obstacles’ that create social legitimacy and opportunities for inclusion and regional development, while opening up alternative visions of what the transition is for and whom it is intended to benefit,” says Mårald.

Contact:

Erland Mårald
professor, Umeå University
+46 70 222 9651
erland.marald@umu.se

Hanna Lempinen
special researcher, Natural Resources Institute Finland
+358 50 527 4190
hanna.lempinen@luke.fi