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Barring major changes in consumption habits, a world powered by renewable energy is a world of dramatically intensified mining - cobalt, copper, lithium, rare earths - and, as a result, ecosystem destruction & human rights violations (1)
grist.org/article/report…
grist.org/article/report…
Renewable energy isn't "clean" unless your carbon accounting starts & ends at electricity grids. Broaden your perspective, & each element of the renewable transition - EVs, energy storage, wind turbines - relies on multiple extractive frontiers (2)
I am currently in Chile conducting research on lithium -- the demand for which will grow to 280% of current reserves in a 100% renewables scenario. In South America, lithium is extracted from water-scarce salt flats, home to endemic species & indigenous communities (3)
There's no easy way out of an extractive model of development, especially in low-income countries with vast unmet human needs and whose governments depend on extractive rents to fund soc services, something I wrote about for @DissentMag (4) dissentmagazine.org/article/what-c…
But this is something enviros & climate activists in Global North need to start thinking about now. How can we shape our demands & solidarities such that the energy transition & the #GreenNewDeal isn't at the cost of ecosystems, indigenous territories, and workers' rights? (5)
