Lithium: the absurdity of seeking to mitigate climate change at the expense of nature itself and local communities

The race to control the supply chain of what is now called critical minerals, or minerals for the energy transition, opens a new chapter in the global geopolitical dispute. After the pandemic and with the war in Ukraine, which demonstrated the vulnerability of supply chains, countries in North America, Europe and Asia, particularly China, are competing not only to master the end-product technologies, but also because of access to the deposits of these minerals, which are currently at the heart of energy storage, such as electric car batteries. In a context of climate crisisthese products could reduce dependence on fossil fuels if there is supporting infrastructure and if they are powered by renewable sources.

Countries like Argentina, which, together with Bolivia and Chile, have about 60% of lithium reserves in brinesee this interest for him lithium as a window of opportunity to attract investment, especially in a context of high prices, and to a much lesser extent, they seek to support processes related to the development of part of the batteries in the country. However, little importance is attached to ecosystem values where the lithium is and the way of life of the communities that have lived there for hundreds of years.

Argentina is today the 4th world producer of this mineral and has approximately 50 projects in different phases. With a focus on generating the foreign exchange required to repay external debt, provincial governments and the central government prioritize these investments, before carrying out the complex but necessary hydrological studies to determine whether the operations can be carried out without irreversible damage to the environment. It is especially disturbing in an extremely fragile region, where water is the rare commodity that defines survival; its availability and quality can be seriously impaired by the impacts of lithium mining, which has been considered true mega-water mining due to the volumes required in its processes.

Environmental policy and management tools aimed at identifying environmental impacts in order to prevent them are either not applied, such as strategic environmental assessment, or poorly applied, as mere formalities, as is the case with the assessment process environmental impacts. These latter They are not carried out in a global basin perspective -but are limited to limited geographical areas-, nor do they integrate the pre-existing uses of water from other economic activities, nor those necessary for community life and biodiversity. Finally, they also lack strong environmental credentials, nor do they consider the cumulative or synergistic impact of ongoing or planned operations.

Environmental information is not shared publicly the time invested in respecting the rights to free, prior and informed consent, which requires time to engage with communities so that they can understand the consequences of lithium mining and the impact on their life and cultureand, where applicable, to consent to it.

As a result, communities like those of large salars there Guayatayoc Lagoon They go through a process of endurance and the defense of their territory and their rights for more than twelve years.

Add to that, Lithium mining is promoted as the solution to climate changeand it is not taken into account that swamps where they are intended to be developed have enormous potential to contribute to the mitigation and adaptation of biodiversity and people to its effects. For example, there are microorganisms that have the ability to sequester and store carbon dioxide, while its degradation could cause the release of greenhouse gases. tight taken in them.

Thinking of lithium as a simple commodity to be exported, instead of solving the problem of currency, will surely reinforce it by generating a new phase of dependent development, by buying more expensive products such as possible electric cars. This generates new balance of payments problems and cycles of indebtedness, which will once again reinforce the vicious circle of having to exploit more nature to pay the debt.

The loss of precious biodiversity, lifestyles, knowledge and Andean cultures not only transforms these territories into sacrifice zones of the hyper-consumerist model of the global North, which does not seek to reduce its demand for minerals and nature , but also reinforces existing inequalities, and obstructs the possibility of thinking about a paradigm shift which puts the care of the life of people and ecosystems at the center, and which teaches us to live within planetary limits.

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