Between wind turbines and solar farms: Chinese capital's presence in the energy transition in the northeastern region of Brazil

Abstract

The race for decarbonization is the global imperative of this new crisis in the capitalist system on environmental, climatic, political, and economic fronts. Decarbonizing energy matrices is one of the strategies adopted to address global climate exhaustion without sacrificing the efficiency of the capitalist mode of production. This new scenario of capitalist crisis and capital accumulation through the exploitation of nature reveals a global race for energy transition. This race is driven not only by the discourse of mitigating climatic and environmental damages but also by international corporations leading the global markets in the ongoing energy transition. In this way, international capital, guided by national sustainable development agendas, territorializes countless wind complexes, solar farms, and deepens mineral exploitation by foreign companies. It is within this context that the new race for Brazil's energy transition incorporates the involvement of Chinese capital, one of the most significant players in the Brazilian energy sector. Based on the aforementioned context, the guiding question of this article is as follows: what is the size and relevance of Chinese involvement in Brazil’s energy transition? In order to delimit our spatial horizon and focus on the region that has received substantial amounts of Chinese capital and occupies a privileged position regarding renewable energy sources, we direct our attention to the northeastern region of Brazil. Hence, our objective is to provide an overview of Chinese activity in the renewable energy sector in Brazil, with a focus on the northeastern region, considering the wave of Chinese investments in the country. We argue that understanding the Chinese position allows for a better analysis and evaluation of what Brazil and its rich diversity of energy resources represent and how the Sino-Brazilian relationship, especially in this sector, has been shaped. Regarding the methodology employed in this article, we use a narrative literature review, present data through descriptive statistics, and associate the Case Study method with interviews to detail situations of capital presence and consequent territorial conflicts.