Green Capitalism is a Death Trap

The European Union wants the future to look like Dublin. The bloc wants to expand data centres threefold across the continent in the next 5-7 years, reducing regulations. Dublin hosts the European headquarters of Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI. These and other Big Tech corporations have massive data centres across Ireland, largely enticed by the country’s low corporation taxes. Yet data centres require huge amounts of water, minerals and power. These factories of AI already require half the Irish capital’s electrical power.

Ireland will be in the EU’s control room, arranging negotiations for a swath of continental legislation relating to Big Tech, like the Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA), as Ireland takes turn with the presidency of the EU’s Council for the second half of 2026. Proposed in June, CADA calls on the bloc to triple data centres’ capacity by “simplifying and accelerating” the permits to build them and enabling access to all the resources they demand, as the European Commission’s website sets out.

The exponential take-off of AI super-charges a Big Tech sector, where relatively unknown men are launched into stratospheric orbit of wealth and power. Their new corporations jettison any responsibilities, taking corporate impunity to new heights. AI is a useful tool for some jobs, like a hammer is useful for others. Yet green capitalism promotes the exponential growth of AI for every job. This roll out is by a Big Tech sector that connects ever tighter with the military industrial complex and comes with other dire social impacts, as companies dig into and trade in our data like never before. Ecologically this digitalisation demands water that is evermore scarce in our climate ravaged age. In Ireland, across the UK and around the world, data centres demand more energy, promoting the growth of gas power, coal and nuclear, not just the renewables the sector speaks of. This also demands more mining. Data centres cannot grow at this rate without pushing further ecological collapse.

It is deadly hypocrisy that increasing mining is one of the three initiatives central to the EU’s Green Deal Industrial Plan, alongside “Net Zero” and electric market reform. The bloc asserts it needs minerals for green ventures, yet in reality these are needed for the mass expansion of data centres, for the war industry and other unnecessary technologies, such as EV vehicles. Mining means destruction, sacrificing lands, water and air to extract minerals. Green capitalism is dangerous magical thinking that we can use more resources and somehow not drive further into social and ecological meltdown. Permission to Pollute – a report by Corporate Europe Observatory – details how through the language of the Green Deal, the EU is ripping up social and ecological safeguards for corporations across the board. This is capitalism on steroids, masquerading behind a green mask. It is putting Big Tech bros onto their launch pads.

We can’t dig ourselves out

The European Union has created legislation to fast-track and cut the permit process of 60 mining projects – so far. Here miners will also get access to EU green funds. These are for ‘critical minerals’ like copper, lithium and cobalt, all necessary for the supposedly green transition. 33 of these 60 mining projects are in water stressed and drought prone areas according to research by Watershed Investigations. This also reveals the EU is also diluting vital water protection laws to enable these mines to go ahead.

The 60 projects are the first tranche of mining projects defined as strategically important through the EU’s 2024 Critical Raw Materials Act. Of these 47 are within the EU, 13 are with partner countries, like Serbia and Norway. Applications for the second tranche closed in January 2026, with publication of mines awarded strategic status due in Autumn. Afterwards, more rounds will follow.

Environmental law firm ClientEarth and other organisations are suing the EU over deeming an open pit lithium mine in Portugal with priority status. The Mina do Barroso mine is planned in mountainous northern Portugal. The lawsuit claims the mine threatens to worsen water scarcity and will threaten the local ecosystem, including from the toxic tailings. Furthermore, the EU’s new law is challenged for riding roughshod over democratic engagement.

The Vulcan lithium project in Germany’s Upper Rhine Valley is the first ‘strategic’ project to receive EU green funding. The European Investment Bank awarded €250million for this project to extract lithium through geothermal drilling; in total, the EU has earmarked €3billion for its strategic projects via its RESourceEU Action Plan. EU citizens are effectively bankrolling the destruction of their lands, whilst their voices are silenced. Lithium extraction near the proposed strategic project in the Rhine has already caused earthquakes and major opposition. Likewise there is resistance against new mines awarded and applying for strategic status across Europe from Spain to Serbia to Northern Norway.

So far, four strongly resisted mining projects have been given strategic status in the Sápmi. This is the homeland for Europe’s last recognised Indigenous people – the Sámi – who live in Norway, Sweden, Finland and also in Russia. Many more mines are proposed in this area viewed by miners and pro-mining Nordic politicians as a “treasure trove” of “untapped material resources”. The deadly contradictions and corrupt corporate narratives in the EU’s green mining agenda reach new depths in the Sápmi.

The last place for green capitalism

The Sámi are recognised as Indigenous peoples as their life-ways are interconnected with nature and a strong bond to their semi-domesticated reindeer. Their lives intertwine with their lands, through herding, fishing, hunting, berry and mushroom gathering and other traditional practices. They do not need a green transition. Instead, Europe could be looking north to think how we can reconsider our relationship with nature.

The Sámi have resisted the Nussir mine since it was first planned in 2014. It is currently under construction in the Nussir mountain that slopes down to the Repparfjord, one of Norway’s 29 nationally recognised salmon fjords. The mountainside is a vital a reindeer calving area. The miners also plan to annually dump 2 million tonnes of toxic tailings into the nearby fjord. This is a spawning area for salmon, cod and other Atlantic fish, which the coastal Sámi rely on as part of their Indigenous life-ways. Between 1972 and 1978, the Ulveryggen copper mine dumped an estimated 1-2 million tonnes of toxic tailings into this fjord, ruining the local fish populations. Scientists have showed that 40 years on fish stocks are still depleted, and the Nussir mine will dump 10 times more toxic waste over the 15 years planned span of this new mine.The Repparfjord opens out to the ocean, skirting around the island of Fálá, known for Hámmárfeasta, the world’s northernmost city – and centre for Norwegian Arctic oil exploitation.

Norway and Papua New Guinea are the only two countries that allow mining companies to dump waste into the ocean. Yet in June 2026 the Norwegian Supreme Court cancelled permits for a different mining project further south, the Engebø project, to dump tailings into the Førdefjorden in Western Norway. The case brought by environmental movements Naturvernforbundet and Natur og Ungdom, alongside 43 other organisations, sets a precedent where in Norway economic arguments cannot override EU water laws. The decision brings the legality of the permits for the Nussir mine into question. Furthermore, the European Free Trade Association and European Surveillance Authority are bringing infringement proceedings against Norway over the permits for dumping mining waste in Førdefjorden and in the Repparfjord.

One part of the EU is going all out to promote a project it says is green, whilst other parts of the European institutional architectures deem it unlawful for ecological impact. Sadly, under its current momentum, the EU may further weaken the water protection laws, as it is doing for data centres and mining. In a green capitalist future there will be little water left for life.

Digging into the Nussir case, toxic deceptions and green gaslighting get even more extreme. Nussir mine, currently under construction, plans to extract copper, gold and silver. Norway and the EU argue we need to dig our own minerals to get off Chinese and other hostile countries’ exports. The mine is currently under construction by Canadian company Blue Moon Metals, whose technical report published in April 2026 tells another story.

Technical reports about a mine are certified documents, regulated to protect investors. It’s fair to say investors are not threatened by the EU’s green capitalism. The report runs to 534 pages details the potential profits of selling the gold, silver and copper to international markets, with no emphasis that its output is going to Europe. For instance, it spells out that: “The Chinese market remains the largest market for copper while the demand for copper with new AI data centers fueling the market growth in the US.” The report excites about selling gold, at “record breaking high prices” and celebrates how all three markets are bullish globally.

Looking at the investors in the mine substantiates the case that this mine will provide resources for global markets, rather than focusing on European self-sufficiency as its metals are offshored from the continent. Thus, the mine will not even assist solely for Europe’s plans, which are self-destructive anyway.

Commodities investors Hartree Partners are major investors in the Nussir mine and provided a $140 million financing package to Blue Moon Metals, including a $25 million bridging loan for the mine’s construction, alongside Oaktree Capital. This agreement includes clauses to buy gold and silver at knockdown prices. Furthermore, Hartree Partners are also in charge of securing minerals for the US, as one of four managers of Project Vault.

Project Vault is a new US government plan to stockpile minerals for US Big Tech, war and other mineral hungry industries. Akin to the US Strategic Reserve for minerals, this project undermines the EU’s critical mineral policies, as it will hoard minerals, reduce availability and cause price rises. After Project Vault’s launch, another one of its managers Mercuria did deals with miners in the DRC. Traxys, another manager, is accused of dealing in African conflict minerals from the DRC via Rwanda. The fourth manager, mining company Glencore, face a litany of human rights and environmental crimes allegations, including in Peru and Bolivia.

Hartree Partners, Mercuria, Traxys and Glencore effectively manage a new arm of US imperialism. This colonialism should be resisted across the Majority World, and also resisted sacrificing the lands of Europe’s last Indigenous people.

The Nussir mine is eligible to apply for a slice of the €3 billion pot of EU funds. In effect, this means European citizens will bankroll Blue Moon Minerals shareholder, including Hartree Partners, to extract minerals and destroy the Sámi’s lands. Researching who owns Blue Moon Metals via a Bloomberg terminal, earlier in the summer, I found these investor include vehicles for super-rich Norwegians, European investors based in the tax havens of Guernsey and Switzerland, alongside US and global investors. There is a solid case to be made that European citizens will be bankrolling these investors to offshore Europe’s minerals, and offshore the profits, all in the name of green capitalism.

Mining ruins regions, it devastates the land, the air, the water, the sea. Yet like all forms of industrialisation its impact also goes further. It is a gateway to greater colonisation. The technical report for the Nussir mine celebrates how much cheap green energy is available. Yet this is only because wind farms are being pushed across the Sámi’s land, also with green capitalism justifications. The miner’s technical report speaks of the expansion of the local port and other transport infrastructure. Again this shows how industrialisation self-perpetuates. The Sámi are already having to cope with climate meltdown and centuries of colonisation, and the destruction of their ways of living from evermore land grabs.

Through green capitalism the Sámi face a new wave of colonisation and gaslighting. These resources will also destroy the lives of everyone. Green capitalism is a death trap, not least with its new adulation of data centres. These are temples for Big Tech, spaces where we are going to sacrifice so much energy and resources and the planet – all for the sake of profits and the gospel that growing digitalisation is somehow green, somehow necessary.