Sri Lanka stands at a critical juncture. Emerging from economic turmoil and the long shadow of civil war, the country now confronts an arguably more insidious struggle: the negotiation of its environmental destiny. Governments and corporations alike hail wind farms, solar parks and carbon sequestration projects as the panacea for energy shortfalls and climate vulnerability. Yet beneath the slogans of sustainability lies a fraught terrain where foreign investors, multilateral lenders and domestic power brokers vie to define what green means and who reaps its rewards. Can Sri Lanka’s pivot to renewables truly foster ecological resilience and social justice or will it merely repurpose colonial patterns of extraction and dispossession under an eco-friendly veneer? This article traces the contours of climate colonialism in the Indian Ocean, examining how large scale green deals risk reproducing dependency even as they promise autonomy. From turbines on war-scarred lands to carbon offsets in ancestral forests, from data driven monitoring to maritime blue carbon schemes, the green transition reveals itself as a contested, multi-scalar project, demanding both critical vigilance and a recalibration of sovereignty.

To read the full story visit https://groundviews.org/2025/06/28/climate-colonialism-in-the-indian-ocean-sri-lankas-green-future-or-new-dependency/

Photo credit: Lahiru Walpita