The Myanmar borderlands as a green energy transition ‘sacrifice zone’: A case study of rare earth mining in Kachin state

Abstract

This article examines the challenges of achieving a ‘just transition’ to a sustainable and low-carbon economy and the spatially uneven distribution of costs that such a transition entails. It does so from the vantage point of Myanmar's war-torn borderlands with China, which have emerged as a major source of heavy rare earth elements, crucial to technologies including electric vehicles and wind turbines. Through a fine-grained analysis of rare earth mining in northern Myanmar, this paper explores how critical mineral frontiers drive new forms of geographically uneven development and reveal the spatial effects of the green energy transition. Our research reveals how marginalised communities currently bear disproportionate social and environmental burdens for the green energy transition and emphasises that greater focus must be placed on who and where bears the costs of this transition by centring the needs and experiences of those living in green energy ‘sacrifice zones’. We argue that if the notion of a just transition is to be meaningful in any serious and pro-poor way, it must confront how such sacrifice zones are produced and what can be done to promote social and environmental justice in these places.