by Adriana Daroqui, Sustainability Strategies ’21 alum
The use of renewable energies for decarbonization replicates the extractives model of fossil fuel production. Both practices destroy the environment, harms plants and animals, and displaces indigenous communities from their ancestral lands in the name of market and economic interests. As a result, climate change mitigation based on the transition to renewable energy has become complicit in condoning ecological degradation and perpetuating violent conflicts and unjust patterns of colonialism, racism, patriarchy, militarization, and structural violence (Sovacool, 2021).
Electric vehicles, which do not emit carbon dioxide, have been presented by European and American governments as an example of their commitment to environmental protection. However, these vehicles require large amounts of lithium for their batteries. As a result, mining companies and electric car manufacturers promote lithium extraction as environmentally benign and climate-friendly, and therefore a gift for the countries that extract it (MacMillen et al., 2021). However, lithium mining destroys the delicate balance in places where plants and animals survive under extreme conditions.
Due to the adoption of carbon mitigation policies, lithium demand for the manufacture of rechargeable batteries has doubled in less than ten years (Jerez et al., 2021 and is projected to increase fivefold by 2025 (Kramarz, 2021). However, electric vehicle production, like oil industry, has disposed indigenous communities of their land and ways of living. Moreover, it does not address traffic concerns or eliminate or reduce single car use in cities.
For decades, two big companies, Albemarle and SQM (Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile), have been extracting lithium from the Atacama Salt Flats in northern Chile, one of the world’s largest lithium deposits. The Atacama Salt Flats are located in one of the driest places on Earth, where animals, plants, and indigenous communities have lived for centuries and have learned how to survive despite these harsh conditions. For example, parinas, native flamingos, filter and feed on microorganisms from the salty water, and the carbo tree that grows in the desert by drawing water from deep in the ground. The local indigenous communities cultivate quinoa, squash, and corn; raise livestock such as guanacos, llamas, and alpacas; and sustainably collect parina eggs as a food source.
In the Atacama Salt Flats, lithium is obtained from brine, which is extracted from underground and exposed to the sun to evaporate the water. The salt flat itself is a complex aquifer system, where waters of different salinity and quality interact (Jerez et al., 2021).
Since the ‘90s, the demand for lithium has increased due to its use in batteries, and companies have been permitted to drain more than 63 billion liters—16.6 billion gallons—of brine per year (Boddenberg, 2020). Brine has been extracted at a faster rate that it can sustainably be replenished, drying up several rivers that locals had used and changing the overall salinity of the salt flats. Moreover, gallons of water have evaporated in one of the world’s driest deserts, increasing the frequency of extreme weather events and land surface temperatures in the region.
In 2016, the mining company Albemarle signed an agreement on Cooperation, Sustainability, and Mutual Benefit with the 18 indigenous communities that make up the Council of Atacameños Peoples. The company committed to paying to the Council the equivalent of 3.5% of lithium carbonate and potassium chloride sales taken from the salt flats. The agreement is being held up by the mining company and the Chilean government as a leading international example for other extractive projects, adhering to the highest available standards. However, the agreement is just an example of the commodification of nature, which considers only the economic value of a resource but neglects the spiritual, cosmological, social, and ecological value of, in this case, the entire salt flats.
The environmental changes caused by lithium extraction threaten the livelihoods of the local people. They have been forced to abandon their crops and cattle, and they have been coerced into partaking in the industrial capitalist system. They have been forced to migrate to cities for better opportunities or to seek a job at a mining company for a wage that allows them to buy food and water. This is the same food and water that the companies they work for destroy through their extractivist activities.
The social consequences for indigenous people are similarly severe. For example, internal conflicts have arisen among community members regarding the agreements with the mining company, which has clearly failed to adequately adhere to the rights of indigenous communities and has violated the principle of free, prior, and informed consent regarding territorial projects (MacMillen et al., 2021). In addition, as people have lost their connection to the land, problems like alcoholism and drug addiction have appeared.
The use of renewable energy technologies is not the solution to climate change. Renewable energies simply hide harm, abuses, and human rights violations. These threats are inherent in the extractivist model and increase inequality and climate injustice. We need policies that protect extractive areas, respect indigenous peoples’ rights, and promote systemic change that makes it possible to reduce extractivism. Until that happens, new energy sources will continue to be discovered, and the ecosystems in which they are found will continue to be destroyed.
Adriana Daroqui, is a 2021 alum of the MS of the Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management program at the Milano School of Policy, Management, and the Environment, The New School, New York. She can be reached at daroa105@newschool.edu.
Sources and References
Boddenberg, Sophia. 2020. Deutsche Welle. Chile: Lithium exploitation leaves residents without water. https://www.dw.com/es/chile-explotación-de-litio-deja-sin-agua-a-pobladores/a-52165228
Jerez, Barbara; Caceres, Ingrid; Torres, Robinson. 2021. Political Geography. Lithium extractivism and water injustices in the Salar de Atacama, Chile: The colonial shadow of green electromobility.
Kramarz, Teresa; Park, Susan; Johnson, Craig. 2021. Energy Research & Social Science. Governing the dark side of renewable energy: A typology of global displacements.
Macmillen Voskobiynik, Daniel; Andreucci Diego. 2021. Greening extractivism: Environmental discourses and resource governance in the ‘Lithium Triangle’. Nature and Space. 1-23.
Sovacool, Benjamin K. 2021. Who are the victims of low-carbon transitions? Towards a political ecology of climate change mitigation. Energy Research & Social Science 73 (2021) 101916
