The EU can’t mine its way out of the climate crises

The EU can’t mine its way out of the climate crises

The EU can’t mine its way out of the climate crises

Today CATAPA joins 180+ communities, organisation and academics to tell the EU to abandon its plans to expand dirty mining as part of EU Green Deal and Green Recovery plans.

In 2019, the European Commission published its European Green Deal, an action plan outlining climate and environmental policies and initiatives to be taken forward in the coming years.

Despite laudable intentions, these plans have at their heart the damaging and illogical idea of ‘green growth‘ and assume ‘business-as-usual’ consumption of energy and materials in the EU.

In particular, as they stand, Europe’s Green Deal plans will lead to a dramatic increase in demand for mineral and metals that the European Commission intends to meet through a large number of new mining projects – both inside and outside the EU.

The EU can’t mine its way out of the climate crises

This planned reliance on mining to deliver the Green Deal is a cause of major concern for civil society around the world.

Mining companies are responsible for an enormous human and ecological toll on every continent. The sector is responsible for extensive human rights violations, conflicts with and within affected communities, and the exploitation of labour and exacerbation of socio-economic inequalities. It is also a significant contributor to climate change, global biodiversity loss and water stress.

Increasing material demand and the EU’s plans to meet it through new mining projects will escalate all of these problems. Mining-affected communities in Europe and their allies in civil society oppose the continuous expansion of the mining industry and challenge the dominant narrative of unlimited growth and policies which uphold it.

The EU can’t mine its way out of the climate crises

The release of this collective statement outlines a civil society analysis of the EU’s current plans and suggests how the EU can address the systemic issues underpinning endless extractivism and turn the tide toward a more just and sustainable future.

The recommendations include the critical need for the EU and Member States to realise in law communities’ right to free, prior and informed consent, including the Right to Say No, as well as to put urgent measures in place to achieve absolute reductions in demand for – and consumption of – raw materials in Europe.

We must urgently and rapidly transition our energy, transport and economic systems to renewables, but relying on expanding mining to meet the material needs of the renewable transition will replicate the injustices, destruction and dangerous assumptions that have caused climate breakdown in the first place. 

In other words, we can’t solve our problems with the same thinking that created them in the first place.

Together, in solidarity with allies in the North and South, we call for:

  • The Right to Say No for all communities facing extractive projects and respect for Indigenous Peoples’ right to Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC);
  • For the EU to set, legislate for and meet binding targets to reduce its overconsumption of materials, in line with planetary boundaries and its global fair share;
  • For just de-growth strategies, not ‘green growth’ or ‘decoupling’, to be placed at the heart of EU climate action;
  • For an end to EU subsidies to mining and undemocratic industry alliances.
  • To treat minerals and metals as common, public goods.
  • Action to remedy mining waste liabilities, to ensure all mining sites are properly restored so that they can no longer continue to contaminate and harm communities and their environment.
  • To ensure EU demand for raw materials does not impact communities and ecosystems in the Global South and that remedy is available when impacts and violations do occur…

 

Find out more by reading our collective statement, signed by 180+ communities, organisations and academics:

‘Driving Destructive Mining: EU Civil Society denounces EU raw material plans in European Green Deal’ – Written by the Yes To Life No To Mining European Working Group. 

The Colombian Government Responds with Extractivism and mining

15 Days of Protests, 40 People Killed, More Than 400 Disappeared: The Colombian Government Responds with Extractivism

NEWS:

15 Days of Protests, 40 People Killed, More Than 400 Disappeared: The Colombian Government Responds with Extractivism

 

After 15 Days of demonstrations and 40 homicides caused by police in Colombia, the government of Iván Duque presents a bill to strengthen the investment of those who intend to exploit gold in the Paramo de Santurbán.

Fifteen days of demonstrations have passed in Colombia against tax policies aimed at taxing the basic family food basket, even though the minimum wage of Colombians is below US$260 per month, and the unemployment rate in the pandemic has increased by 14%. There are currently 1 million more unemployed than at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.

The government has invested money in war, and announced the purchase of 24 war planes costing more than 4.5 billion dollars, despite the fact that the figures for police abuses in the protests are on the rise, with more than 40 demonstrators killed and some 500 people missing. Congressman Wilson Arias has denounced the purchase of more than 14 billion pesos in weapons for the ESMAD (Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squadron), the police used to repress protest in Colombia.

Colombia is literally in flames, the national press is biased, the information is manipulated, the alternative press is violated in the streets, even a journalist has had a grenade thrown at his head according to the denunciation of the FLIP (Foundation for Freedom of the Press).

colombians citizens see army on the streets

…the Colombian government continues to strengthen it’s relationship with the government of the United Arab Emirates, a government that… has a controversial investment in the exploitation of GOLD and polymetals in the ecosystem of the Páramo de Santurbán, in northeastern Colombia.

The southwest of the country, where the strongest demonstrations are concentrated, has suffered power outages and the blocking of internet networks, making it impossible to broadcast the lives of the abuses occurring in the area. There has also been the appearance of civilians dressed in white clothes who call themselves “good citizens”, these people are heavily armed and there is no one to stop them, the police have escorted them on several occasions.

Not enough with this, on May 11, the national government has decided to propose bills 296 and 312 of 2020, through which the agreement signed between the Colombian government and the government of the Arab Emirates for the elimination of double taxation with respect to income and the prevention of tax evasion and avoidance and its protocols, signed in Dubai on November 12, 2017, would be approved. 

This means that the Colombian government continues to strengthen the relationship with the government of the United Arab Emirates, a government that so far has a controversial investment in Colombia and it is about the exploitation of GOLD and polymetals in the ecosystem of the Páramo de Santurbán, in northeastern Colombia.

This ecosystem supplies the water supply for more than 2,500,000 people in Santander and Norte de Santander, a department that borders Venezuela. For the past 10 years, citizens have been demonstrating against this type of projects, and to date, 3 mega-mining projects have been stopped in the Páramo de Santurbán.

people on rooftop with flags of colombia

MINESA has encountered the same panorama as the previous investors in Colombia: a people that reject mega-mining exploitation

Two attempts by the multinational Greystar, one for open-pit mining and for which its environmental license application was denied. And the second, where the same company changed its name to ECO ORO and presented a subway mining megaproject in the same place where it had presented the previous application.

The company has encountered opposition from the public. Its project goes against the principles of environmental protection in Colombian law, and in response to the denial of the company’s request, it has decided to sue the Colombian State before ICSID (World Bank) for more than US$764 million.

The third project corresponds precisely to that of the United Arab Emirates with its company MINESA, which belongs to the subsidiary of the sovereign wealth fund of the Emirate State: MUBADALA. MINESA has encountered the same panorama as the previous investors in Colombia: a people that rejects the mega-mining exploitation in Colombia and especially in the high mountains of the strategic ecosystems that supply water for the human consumption of 80% of the Colombian population.

So in January 2021 the National Environmental Licensing Authority (ANLA) has decided to archive this application for polymetallic exploitation, but the decision goes far beyond a technical equation of experts who consider totally risky and unfeasible a project of this scale in an ecosystem as fragile as the Páramos in Colombia.

It is not “only” the 9 million ounces of gold and other metals to be exploited by the Emirati prince’s fund. The decision is political. Previous Colombian governments (Alvaro Uribe Velez, Juan Manuel Santos) have made apparently “disinterested” transactions with the government of the United Arab Emirates, the most recent ones: a donation of 10 million dollars for economic reactivation in Colombia or the exorbitant sum of 150 tablets to “reduce the digital gap” in Colombia, a country with more than 50 million inhabitants.

Citizen complaints also go beyond ecosystem protection. So far, there is a regulatory vacuum regarding the delimitation of these ecosystems, and Santurbán specifically is not delimited. The scope of the environmental liabilities is not clear, nor is there any guarantee that the project will not impact the numerous populations living further downstream. 

#SOSCOLOMBIA

What is happening in Colombia right now?

NEWS:

What is happening in Colombia right now?

#SOSCOLOMBIA

05.05.2021

 

In Colombia, since April 28, 2021, a National Strike has been taking place against tax policies. The government has decided to tax the basic food basket in the middle of a pandemic, despite the fact that unemployment has increased by 14%.

#soscolombia

Official figures state that in March 2020 there were 2,969,000 people unemployed, in March 2021 there are 3,437,000 unemployed people according to DANE.

 

The minister in charge and who proposed this tax reform, has been involved in millionaire corruption scandals in Colombia, and after 5 days of continuous strike, he resigned. Despite these scandals, he has been nominated as a candidate to be president of the Development Bank of Latin America – CAF. 

#SOSCOLOMBIA

Due to citizen pressure, the vice minister of finance Juan Alberto Londoño also resigned from his position. However he was immediately appointed as the new minister of commerce in Colombia.

 

The government has announced the withdrawal of the document proposing this tax reform, but as of today, it is still in the Colombian congressional system (which would approve it), filed as an Urgent request.

 

The Colombian government and security forces have been condemned by both the European Union and the United Nations for the ongoing human rights abuses against protestors, social movements and civil society who have taken to the street to oppose the tax policies.

CATAPA JOIN EEB to work on mining

CATAPA Joins Europe’s largest environmental network, the EEB

NEWS:

CATAPA Joins Europe’s largest environmental network

 

After several years of fruitful collaboration, CATAPA has formalised it’s membership as an associate member of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) – Europe’s largest network of environmental citizens’ organisations.  

…agenda setting, monitoring, advising on and influencing the way the EU deals with issues.

The EEB brings together over 160 civil society organisations from more than 35 European countries, representing some 30 million supporters and members. It stands for sustainable development, environmental justice & participatory democracy.

CATAPA looks forward to working as an associate of the EEB to tackle Europe’s most pressing environmental problems by agenda setting, monitoring, advising on and influencing how the EU deals with these issues.

The core areas which CATAPA will be working on include; the economic transition, mining and waste prevention, ecodesign in the ICT sector as well as more broadly engaging in policy on climate change, energy, global supply chains, degrowth, Buen vivir, urban mining and resource reduction strategies.

CATAPA looks forward to bringing its expertise to the EEB, to keep the raw materials issue in all its complexity on the EU agenda…

While the primary focus of the EEB’s work is on the EU and its decision-making processes, it works also on wider regional and global processes, at the level of the UN and the OECD, particularly on the Global Agenda for Sustainable Development.

CATAPA looks forward to bringing its expertise to the EEB, to keep the raw materials issue in all its complexity on the EU agenda and to work for an economic alternative that puts well-being, not growth, at the centre of our society.

The El Tingo case

The El Tingo case

Water pollution caused by toxic mining waste has radically transformed the regional ecosystem, poisoning the land.

Author – Giacomo Perna

During one of his visits to Macondo, Melquiades and his gypsies presented to the people what they declaimed to be the eighth wonder of the world of the wise Macedonian alchemists. It was a magnet. By means of this device, José Arcadio Buendía hoped to be able to dig up all the gold in the earth by simply dragging his ingots through the village. If only it really worked, for the world would have been spared centuries of pollution caused by mining. If it did, the lives of the people of El Tingo might be better today.

The community of El Tingo is currently without water. It’s such a controversial situation. Even though the area is rich in rivers and streams, nowadays every spring and water source is in a critical state of contamination, according to university studies and CATAPA’s report. Pollution has reached exasperating levels: it is so high that plants are burned due to the excess acidity of the waters.

The El Tingo community was born as a peasant community. The local economy has always been based on crops and livestock. The current situation prevents these activities from being carried out without risk. As a consequence of water contamination, cases of disease have increased significantly, dangerous amounts of heavy metals have been found in the blood of the inhabitants, and previously unseen malformations have started to appear in newborn animals. And it all happened because of the mining action that affected the territory

Sheep grazing around the Gold Fields mine. The lagoon that used to be a fishing spot is now part of the mining project. © CATAPA

Every water source in the region is contaminated. Lack of resources and income afflict the area. Socio-economic growth promises made by the mining companies did not materialize.

The mining history of the region of El Tingo goes back many years. Environmental liabilities from mining projects of yesteryear still afflict the territory, threatening the well-being of local flora and fauna. Among them is, the San Nicolás project, started in 1972, whose remains represent a still open wound that scars the local environment.

The entire geographical area is seriously affected by excavation and mineral processing. The main reason is that the plans to minimize and neutralize the effects of the toxic waste were – and, according to the local community, still is – not respected and, today, the inhabitants of the area suffer from a lack of resources and income, in addition to directly experiencing the harmful effects of the mining waste.

Remnants of the San Nicolás mine. Despite having been abandoned years ago, toxic wastes from the mine continue to be a problem for the environment. © CATAPA

The community of El Tingo is located in the district of Hualgayoc, in the region of Cajamarca. The area is rich in raw materials and minerals, which does not favor the well-being of the communities. In fact, El Tingo is located between two active mining projects that directly influence the development of life in the community: the Cerro Corona project, started in 2005 by the South African mining company Gold Fields, and the Tantahuatay project, started by the Peruvian company Coimolache, affiliated with the Peruvian company Buenaventura, which discovered the mine in 2010.

These companies have settled in the territory to exploit the huge mineral reserves present in the subsoil: gold, silver and copper. Initially, both companies arrived in the area promising improvements and development, signing social agreements and agreeing to promote socio-economic growth. Unfortunately, they did not live up to their words.

The curious thing is that Peru has a mine closure law. According to regulation passed in 2003, the state obliges companies that own mining projects to ensure the protection of the environment and to cease their activities in areas where mining action could cause environmental risks, but neither the government nor the companies have made any effort to respect – and enforce – this law.

The grass burns due to the high acid concentration of the waters. People and animals suffer from the diseases caused by the environmental pollution of the mining.

It is also worth mentioning that the region is subject to periods of heavy rainfall. On several occasions these rains have caused the tailing dams to overflow, leaking mining waste into the surrounding pastures and water basins and generating catastrophic consequences. An infamous example, is the case of December 2018, where a tailings spill caused the death of 17,000 trout present in the fish farm ‘La trucha de oro’.

Video report of the tailings spill that occurred in 2018. Despite the complaints urged by the local community, the Gold Fields company classified the event as an accident. © Bambamarca Televisión

The problem of pollution does not only affect the El Tingo area. The streams that traverse the territory flow into other rivers. Among them is the El Tingo-Maygasbamba river, which flows into the Amazon river and then crosses the continent to the Atlantic, carrying its poisons for thousands of kilometers.

On the economic side, the promises made by both Coimolache and Gold Fields company were not kept. According to the community, the agreements stipulated were not respected. Despite the promise not to bring foreigners into the region, companies soon began to hire outsiders to work in the mines. In addition, local workers often suffered violations of their labor rights: firing a local worker seems so much easier than firing a foreigner. Furthermore, the promises of prosperity did not materialize and no improvements were made to the roads, which are in a critical state. Even the local architecture suffers from the consequences of mining. Excavations to expand the mines are carried out through continuous detonations in El Tingo, which over time affects the integrity of community buildings. As a result, cracks and scratches populate the walls of many houses, jeopardizing the structural stability of the homes.

Local growth was not improved. The mining presence caused conflicts and social tensions. 

Cows grazing around the Gold Fields mine. The land that for generations has been used to feed livestock is now occupied by mining companies. © CATAPA

The local community has resisted against the injustices from mining in the territory, evidenced by the social tensions that have been documented since 2008. Indeed, the people of El Tingo have risen up against mining servitude and exploitation. Protests and strikes have taken place over the years, demonstrating the commitment of the local community to defend their land and water.

The people of El Tingo have been organizing themselves autonomously in opposition to the mining industry and have also asked for assistance to publicize their struggle and finally be heard. It was for this reason, that CATAPA became actively involved in the territory together with its partner Grufides, conducting dozens of interviews and collecting water samples from the springs. The tests demonstrated a high level of contamination of the rivers and streams that cross the area. Through the interviews collected, a documentary was produced about the case of El Tingo, to give voice to the testimony of the local community. In addition to this, a webinar and a social media campaign were organized. Today, Grufides’ lawyers continue to fight alongside the communities legal representatives, to support the fight for justice.

The El Tingo history is a tale of unfulfilled promises and abuses. The pressure from the central economy is pushing the development of underdevelopment in the region, relegating the community to a situation of irreversible dependence. The area has become an oasis for mining extraction, a locus amenus where the West found the answers to its expansionist demands. It is hard to believe that such abuses are taking place today. The situation in which the inhabitants of El Tingo find themselves is intolerable, and CATAPA’s aim, together with its allies and the community, is to bring justice to a people who for decades have suffered the ravages of dispossession.

Guardians of Water

Guardians of water

In 1957 the American newspaper The New Yorker published a poem by British poet W. H. Auden, the end of which recited: “Thousands have survived without love. Not one without water”.

Indeed, he was right. Despite attempts to raise awareness, today, a part of the world’s population still considers clean water as a given, eternally at their mercy, thanks to easy access to water resources. Unfortunately, they are wrong.

Water does not just come out of the pipe. Although it is a renewable resource, waste and pollution threaten to drastically reduce drinking water supplies. In some cases, human intervention in the environment can cause catastrophic effects on drinking water supplies. That’s what is happening in many parts of the world.

Mining poses a risk to drinking water sources in the vicinity of mining projects. In many cases, the chemical residues used in mineral extraction processes end up being dumped into rivers and streams, poisoning riverbeds and transforming water, a source of life, into a critical danger to life itself.

Due to the need to preserve the integrity of water in high-risk areas, such as those regions subject to mining activities, the project “Guardians of water” was born, as a result of a collaboration between CATAPA and the local organization Grufides, along with subsidies provided by the city of Ghent (Belgium).

© CATAPA

If the water were to become contaminated, any plant or animal food from the region would be harmful for human consumption

The project, which started in January 2020, takes place in the Cajamarca region, in northern Peru, an area subject to high mining impact. The objective of the project is to strengthen environmental governance in the Environmental Monitoring Committees through the community participation in social management activities and water quality monitoring.

By being active in the territory, CATAPA, together with its local partners, seeks to promote the social commitment of native communities to safeguard the purity of the rivers that run through the Cajamarca region. Since the beginning of the project, CATAPA has been able to count on strong local participation and the support of several communities interested in preventing possible damage caused by the action of mining extraction.

© CATAPA

The problem does not only concern the inhabitants of the rural areas closest to the mine. In fact, life in Cajamarca and its surroundings depends on the water coming from the highlands. The rivers that are in danger of contamination represent the most important source of drinking water for the city and its surroundings. It is this same water that irrigates the fields and quenches the thirst of farm animals. Natural products from the region depend directly on local water flows.

This means that if the water were to become contaminated, any plant or animal food from the region would be harmful for human consumption. In fact, recent studies by the OEFA (Organismo de Evaluación y Fiscalización Ambiental) have found the presence of 40% arsenic in avocados from Cajabamba, in the province of Cajamarca.

It should also be borne in mind that rivers are not sedentary entities, as their extension knows no jurisdictions. Many of the rivers affected – or threatened – by the presence of mines, run over vast areas, flowing to the coast or even joining other larger rivers, such as the Marañon, which ends up flowing into the giant sea river, the Amazon. A clear example of the large-scale dangers of river pollution can be found in the Tingo issue. The aim of CATAPA and its partners is to prevent another environmental disaster with such an impact.

© CATAPA

Local communities demonstrated their commitment by supporting the creation of committees dedicated to registering the state of river waters. Thanks to the action of CATAPA these committees have been consolidated and strengthened. Nowadays, water measurement tests are considered as legal tests to evaluate the state of the water before and after the mining action. These tests can be the basis for bringing charges against companies that have caused, through their actions or negligence, the pollution of rivers.

The opening of the mine represents a danger to the waters, as the mining waste could poison the river and the fields, composing the requiem for the region and its resources

The project was initially to focus on three local water basins, the Chetillano, San Lucas and Llaucan ones. The first water monitoring was carried out on the San Lucas river in Cushunga and on the Llaucan river in Bambamarca, with the participation of the local population and also with the support of the Environmental Vigilance Committees. Both tests proved the purity of the water.

The normal development of the project was temporarily slowed down due to the COVID-19 situation in the country, but the unforeseen event did not dampen the enthusiasm of CATAPA volunteers and local partners. In fact, to cope with the impossibility of moving around the region, the volunteers active in the territory adapted themselves to continue fighting. Webinars, virtual presentations and online workshops on methodologies and useful tools were organized to familiarize local populations with the process of community-based environmental monitoring of water quality. Photo campaigns were also promoted, videos and documentaries were published, and a basic guide was written to explain how to monitor water. Despite the difficulties of the pandemic, the activities were a success.

When the restrictions were partially lifted, water monitoring was able to start again. Unfortunately, interprovincial travel was prohibited, so no further tests could be carried out in the Bambamarca area. Therefore, it was decided to include the river La Encañada in the project. This river is located right next to the under-construction mining project called Michiquillay, scheduled for 2022. Concern among the local population is high, as construction work on the mine has been accelerated due to pressure from the Peruvian government, which is seeking to boost mining as part of a project to revive the country’s economy.

The opening of the mine represents a danger to the waters, as the mining waste could poison the river and the fields, composing the requiem for the region and its resources. Fortunately, a local committee is already in place to monitor the area. The situation of the La Encañada river is at extremely high risk, as it is an indirect tributary of the Amazon river. Its contamination would put an immense geographical area at risk.

© CATAPA

Today, the Environmental Surveillance Committees, continue to monitor the waters autonomously, fulfilling their role as Guardians of the Water. The project ended in August 2020, but the second part has been underway since January 2021.

In fact, despite the achievements, the struggle is not over. Volunteers and local partners are drafting a detailed guide on how to carry out autonomous water monitoring, which will be delivered in Cajamarca and its surroundings. In addition, the initial project has revealed the importance of focusing on the La Encañada river, establishing local committees along its length, and the need for a law that officially recognize the presence of Environmental Monitoring Committees throughout the country.

Here you can find the link to the documentary CATAPA made in Cajamarca.

CATAPA gallery (all rights reserved)

The End of Naïve Europe,The Rise of Green Imperialism

Image: CRM deposits EU-27 (2020). Source: European Commission’s M(2020) 474 final.

ARTICLE:

Re-published from: Vázquez Ruiz, A. 2020. “Op-Ed: The End of Naïve Europe, The Rise of Green Imperialism.” Commodity Frontiers 1: 56-59. doi:10.18174/cf.2020a17975.

The End of Naïve Europe,The Rise of Green Imperialism

Author: Alberto Vázquez Ruiz

On 29 September 2020, the European Commission officially launched the European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA), a publicly supported “industrial alliance dedicated to securing a sustainable supply of raw materials in Europe”. In other words, firing the starting pistol of public funding for the race to explore and extract mineral deposits outside the European Union and especially within its borders.

Until now, the EU had only been financing mining and metallurgical private companies under the pretext of technological innovation and market competition. Since the launch of Horizon 2020 in 2014, the Commission has been assembling the institutional tools (e.g. EIT Raw Materials, the Partnership Instrument) allowing to finance private technology developments inside the EU for exploration, exploitation and metallurgy. Horizon 2020 is finishing this year, but the instruments created remain and the technological excuse seems no longer needed.

“The era of a naïve Europe that solely relies on soft power is behind us”. With these words, Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, announced earlier this month the “EU action plan for critical raw materials”, which is the EC’s strategy to face the consequences of the commercial war between the USA and China and to encourage EU nation states to focus on raw materials as part of a post-COVID19 ‘green’ recovery plan.

The pandemia has indeed created the perfect momentum to call for support for this industry. However, resource extraction and its processing together represent 90% of biodiversity loss and water stress in the world. Bad news, as many experts have already pointed to the relation between  the pandemia and biodiversity loss.

It is impossible for the EC to ignore last year’s report by the International Resources Panel (UNEP), which clearly warned humanity that metal extraction and production has doubled health and climate change impacts from 2000 to 2015 solely. And today, mining and metallurgy are representing already 20% of all health impacts from air pollution and more than a quarter of global carbon emissions. So why is the Commission actually making this change of course?

The shift in its position has been justified as the “access to resources is a strategic security question for making the green and digital transformations a success”. Although the Commission claims to share the widespread will to combat climate change and to leave no person and no place behind in the process, the Commission also openly calls for an increased mining boom which will reinforce the pressing systemic problem facing people and planet.

While green technologies are based on energy sources which are renewable, their machines are not. Electricity generation based on solar, wind, tidal… generators rely on metals (many metals if you consider off-grid technologies). The planned transition without socio-economic restructuring towards schemes that push for drastic reduction in consumption of energy, will just move us from an energy matrix based on the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels towards a loop of increasing extraction and processing of metals for the manufacturing of metal-based solutions.

It could be argued that a society based on metal-based technologies is a sustainable scenario because we would be able to recycle these elements in the future, but the reality is very far from this. The IRP-UNEP also warned us that “only 18 metals have recycling rates higher than 50%”. For the rare earths elements (REEs) needed in most green energy technologies, the recycling rate reaches just 1%.  What will happen in 30 years when the energy machines are already obsolete and fossil fuels are no longer efficient to be extracted? Mining, metallurgy and manufacturing industries are the biggest energy consumers. “What is happening today is nothing less than a massive PR campaign to sell the idea that mining is not only necessary but it can also be sustainable,” said Nick Meynen, Policy officer at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB).

While the EC’s Action Plan does recognise the need for improving recycling rates and the importance of reinforcing the circular economy, it lacks a coherent set of proposals that could tackle the reasons behind the low recycling rates and the slow implementation of a circular economy. There are no regulations for recyclability (yes, but more importantly there are no restrictions on production, so materials can be mixed in a way which make the products poorly recyclable, but cheaper – it is not a end-of-use technological issue), repairability (modularity in products and regulations to end the monopoly on spare parts production), reusability (plans on how to proceed with older machines). 

Breton recognises that the “post-war world architecture is faltering”, but the proposed treatment seems to be confusing the disease and the cure. His decision will accelerate the process, shaking the social foundations of our civilization even harder, instead of rebuilding our system by attacking the true causes of our current crisis. It can be seen both as a symptom of political negligence or as a part of a more complex agenda towards green imperialism.

Europe has expressed its aim to become the green energy superpower. However, the amount of minerals that the EC considers necessary for the future transition is extreme and the global metal demand already increased by 87% from 1980 to 2008. “Critical raw materials” (a techno-political rebranding of the elements the EC considers necessary today) are increasingly required for batteries in electric vehicles and off-grid generation and storage, among others. There is no way of getting that huge amount of resources without pushing social peace to its limits – also inside the EU.

“The transition to a low-carbon economy – and the minerals and metals required to make that shift – could affect fragility, conflict and violence dynamics in mineral-rich states”, reported the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in 2018. A similar and simpler analysis was made by the EEB that year: “More mining leads to more fighting”. This is the reality that local communities and civil societies organisations are facing all around the world. Global Witness has even accounted mining as the main sector responsible for the killing of land and environmental defenders across the globe. This reality has been commonly associated with the Global South. Further evidence that the due diligence voluntary process, which is supported by the EU to guarantee responsible sourcing of metals, is far from useful in avoiding human rights violations.

Now, in the middle of the coronavirus crisis, Europe seeks to compensate its weaker commercial share, and to reinforce the aim to secure its supply,  with insourcing. Breton mentions that the Action Plan seeks to “protect our democracies against the menace of disinformation”, but at the same time points out that the major barrier to develop the insourcing is a lack of “public acceptance” in the European society to allow new mining projects to start operating. Therefore, several EC financed research projects have been looking for increasing “public acceptance” for this sector in local communities across the Union affected by proposed and/or operating extractive projects.

There is still no democratic capacity to decide by local communities nor their municipalities on the mining projects that will drastically change their land and very possibly leave tonnes of mining waste landfilled in their towns waiting. The discourse of the EC is that there is a lack of understanding of the mining sector by local communities and that there is a need to educate the European society on the current reality of the mining sector (a false mantra by the sector is that the environmental issues of mining and metallurgy are a matter of the past). This discourse which mixes the real needs of our planet with the demand for resources caused by the Commission’s plans for an ominous EU Green Deal will lead down the path where destruction of the environment, land and societal configurations, is forced through for Europe’s future.

“By building, today, the foundations of tomorrow’s autonomy, our Continent has the opportunity to establish a set of rules, infrastructures and technologies that will make it a powerful Europe, without ostracism or discrimination”, states Breton. This sentence provides an insight into the future the Commission is implementing in Europe. A “powerful Europe” directed by the few privileged ones living in the “civilized world” of Europe’s main cities enjoying access to green energy, but an inequality nightmare for local communities worldwide which will be affected by the increasing environmental, social and political issues on which the Green Empire will rely. To prevent this upcoming reality, today many organisations state “We can’t mine our way out of the climate crisis”.

You can find more articles from the Commodity Frontiers journal this op-ed was published in, here.

Profile

Alberto Vázquez Ruiz holds a MSc. in Conflict and Development (UGent, Belgium) and is specialized in topics related to mining and electronics. Since May 2018 he has been Project Coordinator at CATAPA (Belgium), researching on metal supply chains, on socio-environmental impacts of mining operations on local communities and on extractive waste in the EU.

We can’t mine our way out of the climate crisis, European Commission told

We can’t mine our way out of the climate crisis, European Commission told

30th September

234 civil society organisations, communities and academics call on EC to align critical raw materials sourcing plans with the interests of the planet, communities and the climate.

 

CATAPA joined over 230 civil society organisations, community platforms and academics  in releasing an open letter to call on the European Commission to urgently reassess its plans for sourcing the raw materials it claims Europe will need to realise energy, industrial and military transitions.

The letter is a timely intervention by the broad coalition, as the European Commission launched its new EU Raw Materials Alliance a day after the letter was brought to public attention.

Instead of expanding and repatriating mining destruction which will threaten communities, biodiversity & the planetary life support systems – the signatories call for:

1. Absolute reduction of resource use and demand in Europe

2. Recognition and respect for communities’ Right to Say No to mining

3. Enforcement of existing EU environmental law and respect for conservation areas

4. An end to exploitation of Global South nations, and respect for human rights

5. Protection of ‘ new frontiers’ – like the deep sea- from mining.

The current plans proposed in European Commissions’ Raw Material Strategy will lead to a new wave of resource extraction both in the EU and the Global South, turning any plans for a ‘Green EU’ instantly brown. A sustainable strategy cannot be to think that we can mine our way out of the climate crisis towards a green future.

You can find the English version of the letter in full here.

You can find the Spanish version of the letter in full here.