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frontline communities
Let's Make a Green Energy Transition Without the Dirty Energy Mistakes
In the race to secure the supply for this urgent transition, we cannot afford to follow in the footsteps of the fossil fuel industry’s status quo where profits were put before communities and our air and water.
Nov 27, 2023
As the world grapples with the climate crisis driven by extracting and burning fossil fuels, clean technologies—wind farms, solar panels, and electric vehicles—are essential tools in fighting back. But these technologies cannot be ramped up at the speed and scale that we need without the extraction of minerals such as copper, nickel, and lithium.
This week, over 2000 leaders in the mining, energy, and government sectors will meet in London to discuss this issue, and how to tackle it. As demand skyrockets for these minerals as we develop clean energy and as the industry innovates new technologies, it is imperative that around the world, government leaders implement strong policies and regulations to avoid the problems perpetuated by the fossil fuel industry.
As more electric cars hit the road and more wind turbines are erected at sea, now is the time to right the decades-old problems of these extractive industries, including mining.
In the race to secure the supply for this urgent transition, we cannot afford to follow in the footsteps of the fossil fuel industry’s status quo where profits were put before communities and our air and water. As more electric cars hit the road and more wind turbines are erected at sea, now is the time to right the decades-old problems of these extractive industries, including mining.
While there have been many innovations in the mining sector, like drying mine tailings for their safe disposal, extracting lithium from geothermal brines, and reusing the industry’s old mining waste to turn into minerals used in electric car batteries, the mining industry has still caused—and continues to cause—harm to the environment and frontline communities. This includes polluting air and water, exploiting workers, and standing in the way of necessary reforms despite the many readily available technologies and practices that ensure good stewardship.
Consumers expect products to be sustainably created—electric vehicles included. As we transition to clean energy and clean transportation, industry must embrace innovation and strong safeguards to increase efficiency in mineral use, reduce the need for mining, and ensure communities and workers up and down the supply chain are protected.
There are a number of solutions being deployed right now to meet the increasing demand for minerals used in electric car batteries without having to rely on more and more mining. New technology—like smaller batteries—and strong circularity policies have the potential to make batteries that are more efficient, and nearly halve the demand for minerals by 2050, reducing the need for more mining. Committing to scale and using these best practices consistently would alleviate much of the environmental harm we’re seeing.
Consumers of electric cars are expecting sustainable practices from mine to vehicle, as well as the prioritization of clean air, safe water, and healthy communities.
With better mineral traceability—which proves minerals’ origin and steps from mining to downstream uses—mining companies and the businesses that buy what they extract will be able to complete sustainability certifications, bringing accountability to the process, ensuring the minerals are mined in a way that is as environmentally and ethically sourced as possible. There are international guidelines to follow, as well—the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance has a set of standards to assess mines and help ensure automakers can purchase minerals that they know they can trust to be as sustainable and justly extracted as possible.
Better sourcing, coupled with policies like the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act and international mining standards are all increasing the efficiency and sustainability of cleantech from batteries to solar panels. These are all just a start. More work must be done to include Indigenous and other frontline communities in the minerals value chain to address human rights issues, governance needs, and local environmental impacts while providing economic opportunities in this transition. Regulations, standards, innovations, and technological improvements must be scaled up and deployed and made a key part of the conversation about electric cars at the local, regional, national, and global levels.
Consumers of electric cars are expecting sustainable practices from mine to vehicle, as well as the prioritization of clean air, safe water, and healthy communities. As global leaders gather in London later this month, they have the opportunity to make the future of electric transportation as sustainable as possible and shape this transition in a way that serves communities on the ground, spurs economic growth, and combats the climate crisis, rather than make the same mistakes as the fossil fuel industry.
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Biden's Key Climate Law Gives Big Oil a 'Massive Escape Hatch': Analysis
"While the IRA was touted as the 'largest investment in climate and energy in American history,' it could turn out to be a failure if Biden doesn't also take bold action on fossil fuels," said Oil Change International.
Nov 20, 2023
The 2022 law heralded as U.S. President Biden's key climate achievement may support an expansion of clean energy, but a new analysis out Monday demonstrates how the Inflation Reduction Act leaves the fossil fuel industry with vast opportunities to extract more oil and gas and continue boosting its record-breaking profits at the expense of frontline communities.
The report, said Oil Change International (OCI) as it released the new findings, proves that the Biden administration can't rely on the IRA to demonstrate its commitment to the emissions reduction that scientists agree is needed to mitigate the climate crisis.
Titled Biden's Fossil Fuel Fail: How U.S. Oil and Gas Supply Rises Under the Inflation Reduction Act, Exacerbating Environmental Injustice and released 10 days before the 28th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), the analysis uses previously unpublished data from climate modeling by the Rhodium Group, an environmental think tank.
"The model projects that despite the IRA's investment in renewable energy, electric vehicles, and batteries, the United States could still miss its Paris Agreement goal of reducing U.S. emissions by 50 to 52% below 2005 levels by 2030," reads the report, noting that as the world's largest historical emitter of fossil fuel emissions, the U.S. has a responsibility to "cut its emissions faster than the global average."
The group's model projects that domestic fossil gas demand in the U.S. will decline by 16% by 2035, yet production is expected to rise by 7%. Petroleum demand is expected to decline by 20%, yet production will rise by 13%.
"The gap between production and demand is filled by surging exports," explained OCI. "Gas exports are projected to double by 2035, while oil and petroleum product exports rise 23%."
Wind and solar power are expected to replace gas domestically, added the organization, but the positive effects of the decline in gas demand in the U.S. are "tempered by an increase in gas consumption within the oil and gas industry itself."
The "energy-hungry" liquefied natural gas (LNG) export sector will essentially cancel out progress made by surging wind and solar power in the U.S., said OCI, with gas consumption by LNG export plants growing 140% by 2035.
"The Biden administration touts the Inflation Reduction Act as a centerpiece of its achievements on climate," said Collin Rees, U.S. campaign manager for OCI. "In reality, the bill leaves a massive escape hatch for the fossil fuel industry to continue business as usual."
Rhodium's modeling projects that the U.S. will miss its targeted emissions reduction for 2030 by 16-18 percentage points if the Biden administration relies on the IRA and its investments in technological fixes like carbon capture and storage and fossil hydrogen production while allowing continued investments in oil and gas exports.
"While the IRA was touted as the 'largest investment in climate and energy in American history,' it could turn out to be a failure if Biden doesn't also take bold action on fossil fuels," said OCI in a statement. "As the world gathers for COP28, Biden still has a chance to be the climate leader he claims he is by making a commitment to phasing out fossil fuels."
The phase-out of all oil and gas production in the U.S. is widely recognized as necessary by energy and climate experts, and has long been demanded by advocates for frontline communities, which bear a disproportionate public health burden due to the strong links between fossil fuel extraction, storage, and transport and harms including respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular disease, and poor outcomes for pregnant people and infants.
Boosting fossil fuel production and exports "while exacerbating pollution in environmental justice communities," said OCI, is a "deadly combination."
Roishetta Sibley Ozane, founder of the Vessel Project of Louisiana, said Biden's approval of projects like the Willow oil drilling initiative in Alaska, nearly $2 billion for publicly financed fossil fuel projects abroad, and his support for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, among other pollution-causing infrastructure, has shown frontline communities that the president's campaign promises regarding environmental justice were "nothing but a smokescreen."
"We supported [President Joe] Biden for change, not to deal with deadly decisions made without us at the table," said Ozane. "The fight against climate disaster is collective, and the United States cannot preach about caring for communities while exporting pollution globally."
The pollution impacts of continued fossil fuel production and exports will be "disproportionately borne by Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor communities—specifically in Appalachia, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico," said OCI.
To align with Biden's stated climate goals, the group said, the president's efforts must go far beyond the IRA and include a phase-out of oil and gas exports, an end to fossil fuel leasing on federal lands, and a halt to all approvals for new fossil fuel infrastructure.
"At COP28 the spotlight will be on our collective effort to end the fossil fuel era," said Rees. "Will the United States deliver, or will Biden's climate legacy be one of disastrous oil and gas expansion and failure to adequately tackle the climate crisis?"
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