In an era characterised by the urgent necessity to transition to cleaner, more sustainable energy systems and to achieve climate-neutral, digitalised economies, both Chile and Indonesia occupy strategic positions on the global stage (IEA 2022). In a context where urgent sustainable shifts must be implemented, the global map of energy and material flows is being redrawn (Post and Le Billon 2025). As leading global suppliers of critical minerals—Chile with lithium and copper, and Indonesia with nickel—these countries have become indispensable to the production chains for the manufacture of low-carbon-emission technologies, such as electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure (IEA 2022). Yet they also face a deep paradox. Under what Bringel and Svampa (2023) call the Decarbonisation Consensus—a global tacit agreement to substitute fossil fuels with renewable energy sources while preserving the long-term extractive logic of a reformed (green) capitalist system—countries in the periphery risk intensifying the burdens of sacrifice zones while contributing to global decarbonisation.

While framed as sustainable progress, this global shift may be reviving long-standing colonial patterns—now painted green. Thus, for countries like Chile and Indonesia, the energy transition could either reproduce old dependencies or open a window to rewrite them. The question, therefore, is whether they will continue to serve as exporters of raw materials, bearing the socio-environmental costs linked to extractive activity of a transition framed by the Decarbonisation Consensus, or whether they can seize this moment to redefine their roles in the world economy and critically re-examine society’s prevailing social metabolism.

Energy geopolitics encompasses both the geography of supply and demand and the political efforts to secure affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy sources. It highlights interactions between political actors and physical environments. Thus, as the global energy system evolves, so does its geopolitics (Blondeel et al. 2024). Authors, such as Hira (2025), have pointed out that, just as the quest to control petroleum resources influenced the twentieth century and early twenty-first century, critical minerals will also influence the geopolitics of the present and coming decades. Moreover, this current transformation offers critical mineral–producing countries a unique opportunity to build competitive industries. Experience demonstrates that strategic industrial policies, particularly in research and development (R&D), can enhance the growth of competitive sectors.

In 2024, global demand for critical minerals surged. Lithium demand alone rose by nearly 30%, far exceeding the average 10% growth rate of the 2010s. Consumption of nickel, cobalt, graphite, and rare earth elements grew by roughly 6–8%, driven mainly by energy applications such as electric vehicles, batteries, renewables, and power grids. Copper demand also climbed, propelled by China’s large-scale investments in electrical infrastructure (IEA 2025b). While clean-tech developers sit at the core of the world economy, mineral producers remain at the periphery, absorbing the environmental costs of powering someone else’s transition―China is a particular case of a transitioning economy. This dynamic is exacerbating socio-environmental burdens in resource-dependent economies and regions due to mining activities (Poque González 2025a; IEA 2022). It might reinforce global patterns of ecologically unequal exchange under a new (green) colonial frame (Dorninger et al. 2021; Hickel et al. 2022).

Among the new frontiers of extraction, Chile and Indonesia stand out—not only for their mineral wealth, but for the contrasting political strategies they have adopted to govern it. Indonesia produces over 60% of global nickel; Chile dominates copper (24% of world output) and ranks second in lithium (around 30%). Yet their governance models diverge sharply (IEA 2025b; ITA 2023). In Chile, copper mining is dominated by private companies, which control around 72% of production. The State owns the remaining 28% through Codelco. Major private operators come from the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe, and Asia. Lithium extraction is carried out by only two firms: Soquimich (SQM)—partially owned by Tianqi—and Albemarle Chile, a wholly owned subsidiary of Albemarle Corp. Chile is also a leading producer of iodine, rhenium, sodium, and potassium nitrate (ITA 2023). A current point of controversy involves the alliance........

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