Epilogue

This epilogue interrogates the rise of a global decarbonization consensus that frames the climate crisis as a problem to be solved through a corporate-led energy transition. While presented as inevitable and desirable, this consensus narrows socio-ecological transformation to the electrification of consumption and expansion of “green” technologies, sidelining broader questions of justice, democracy, and metabolic change. We show how the pursuit of carbon neutrality fuels new forms of green extractivism and energy colonialism , generating sacrifice zones in the Global South through intensified demand for lithium, cobalt, balsa, and other critical resources. Echoing earlier capitalist consensuses, this new paradigm reinforces corporate capture, speculative markets, and ecological dispossession, while deepening global asymmetries. By exposing its continuities and novelties, we argue that the decarbonization consensus embodies a technocratic and neo-colonial project, one that must be critically challenged to open space for eco-social alternatives.