Article by Eric Worrell
The difference between us and a Venezuelan-style economy where the average person scavenges for food is that politicians listened to the wrong advice.
UN could set new approach on 'critical' transition minerals
Posted on August 20, 2024 at 4:51 pm
Comment: A high-level group is working to develop principles for responsible mining, which will be presented to the UN General Assembly in September
go through Claudia Velarde, Stephanie Weiss and Jessica Solorzano
Claudia Velarde is co-director of the Ecosystem Program of the Inter-American Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), Stephanie Weiss is AIDA Program Coordinator, and Jessica Solórzano is AIDA Economic Specialist.
The global push for renewable energy, aimed at reducing emissions that fuel climate change, has revealed how the environmental and social costs of extracting needed minerals fall disproportionately on local communities and ecosystems.
Many believe electric vehicles and renewable energy technologies will help mitigate climate change, but large-scale adoption of these technologies will require a massive increase in the mining of minerals such as lithium, which is key to their development.
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Our reflections on issues the group cannot ignore point to three elements: status quo “Development” approach; high level of technological optimism about the mining industry; lack of urgency regarding ecosystem limits and community rights.
First, we acknowledge that the Group faces pressure from powerful actors, but it needs to resist claims that mining has always been beneficial to the country's economic growth and prosperity. This status quo view reinforces the idea that humans consume unlimited natural resources and reflects the economic development commitments of the early 20th century that led to the current climate crisis.
The expert panel must not fail to consider the possibility of mining activities growing or imposing restrictions that would reduce material and energy consumption. Nor should it ignore other forms of traditional and local knowledge that may offer possibilities for alternative development.
There is then consensus that assessment and evaluation of the impacts, pollution and other ecosystem damage caused by mining is necessary – and that these can protect ecosystem integrity.
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Learn more: https://www.climatechangenews.com/2024/08/20/the-un-can-set-a-new-course-on-critical-transition-minerals/
I don’t think we should ignore these glimpses into what I believe to be the true agenda of the Green Movement – the unraveling of the Industrial Revolution and the return of the medieval peasant economy.
Did you know that Venezuela was the fourth richest country in the world per capita in the 1950s? The path to reduced consumption is bound to be accompanied by tremendous pain and economic disruption. Whether the reduction in consumption is due to economic imbalances, price controls or government sanctions on key economic activities such as mining, the result is always a recession or a new Great Depression, or in extreme cases an outright collapse.
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