🌱 What issues arise from transition minerals?
The energy transition relies heavily on minerals needed for renewable technologies, electrification, and to build up battery capacity to store the produced renewable energy. Many of these minerals are mined in areas with “poor[er] infrastructure, sanitation or healthcare provisions, [or] unstable governance”. The mining can have adverse effects on workers, local and Indigenous communities, and the environment.
🌱 How much transition minerals do we need?
As the need for renewable energy technologies grows, the exploration and extraction of transition minerals will continue to increase. According to the International Energy Agency, 7 million tons of transition minerals were mined globally in 2020. To stay under the 2°C threshold, the production of transition minerals needs to be scaled up to around 28 million tons annually. Given the lower energy efficiency of fossil fuels and the continuous material and energy input required for a fossil fuel infrastructure, a fossil fuel economy however requires significantly more (roughly 500 to 1000 times more) mining than a clean energy economy does.
🌱 What could sustainable development in transition mining look like?
To meet international climate objectives, the energy transition needs to occur quickly and on a large scale. This should however not come at the cost of labor rights, human rights, and the environment. We therefore need to put local communities and the environment at the center of the energy transition. Optimally, we would put in place a global regulatory framework which governs both large and small-scale mining activities well, is “inclusive of marginalised communities”, and defines clear minimum safety and environmental standards. Mining locally in high governance areas (such as the EU and the USA) could also prove helpful in this regard.
Read more about the role of mining in sustainable development here:
- https://theintelligentminer.com/2023/01/19/meeting-the-sustainable-development-goals-through-mining/
- https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/mining-low-carbon-vs-fossil