The renewable energy transition is crucial to mitigate climate change and enhance energy security. However, it also has a large material footprint because it depends on the mining of critical minerals. Local communities frequently resist such mining due to their impact on resource access, pollution, and livelihoods, leading to tensions with mining companies and governments. This blog explores why such tensions turn violent and what can be done to manage them peacefully.

When we think about the renewable energy transition, we think of solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries that help us to mitigate climate change and achieve energy security at the same time. By contrast, most of us are unlikely to associate the renewable energy transition with violent events, such as the police throwing white phosphorus bombs at local activists in Myanmar or with large-scale community protests in Ghana. But such events are closely tied to the renewable energy transition as well.

Mining for Green Energy: The Material Footprint of the Renewable Energy Transition

Renewable energy technologies have a large material footprint because they are highly reliant on so-called transition minerals (sometimes also termed critical minerals) like lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths, and copper. The rise of solar, wind, and battery technologies resulted in a rapid growth in demand for these transition minerals. Most of this demand is met by the expansion of existing or the establishment of new mining sites, particularly in the Global South. Communities in the mining areas concerned about land-grabs, water scarcity, environmental pollution, and a range of other mining impacts often mobilize against the mine, resulting in (usually non-violent) conflicts. Some studies estimate that such resistance results in over 4,500 mining conflicts globally every year.

Transition mineral conflicts can take vastly different forms. In Myanmar, for instance, local communities protested against land grabbing, air pollution, and livelihood losses associated with the expansion of the Monywa Letpadaung Copper Mine between 2010 and 2014. The conflict escalated quickly into verbal abuse and physical altercations. Protestors blocked the road to the mine and allegedly engaged in vandalism and verbal threats. In 2012 and again in 2014, state security forces conducted violent crackdowns of protests camps, resulting in one death and over one hundred injuries.

By contrast, conflicts around the proposed extraction of bauxite in the Atewa Forest in Ghana remained less intense. Local communities, the mining company (SinoHydro), and the government strongly disagreed on the mining projects, but carried out their struggle through lawsuits, electoral campaigns, and lobbying. No (threats of) physical violence were involved.

Green Minerals, Familiar Conflict Patterns: Links Between Transition Mineral Mining and Conflict

Contrasting these two cases of transition mineral extraction and comparing them with other mining sites across the Global South reveals at least two relevant insights.

The first insight is that transition mineral mining can result in intense and even violent conflicts, with adverse impacts on political stability, human rights, and supply chain security. The Monywa Letpadaung Copper Mine, which saw intense local resistance and repressive violence by security forces, is a case in point. Even in politically stable and democratic countries like Chile, the government has deployed the military police to monitor (and presumably also to intimidate) anti-mining protestors in the Putaendo Valley. In this sense, and despite their association with positive outcomes like climate protection and energy security, transition minerals are not different from other natural resources. For example, Oil extraction has been accompanied by massive state and company violence in Nigeria.

However, just as the link between oil and conflict is no one-way street, transition mineral mining does not always lead to intense struggles. The non-violent and even sometimes cooperative relations between the communities, the mining company, and the state in the Atewa Forest in Ghana are a case in point. Another example would be the Cerro Verde Copper Mine in Peru, where the surrounding communities and the mine owner (Freeport-McMoRan) negotiated in good faith and did not engage in violent activities. Eventually, the agreed on an expansion of mine in 2012 under the condition that the mining company would construct a wastewater treatment plant to address local water insecurity.

The second insight is that political culture and polarization are important for how transition mineral conflicts play out. On first glance, the violent Monywa Letpadaung conflict and the much more peaceful Atewa Forest conflict have a lot in common; the mining was an intense threat to local livelihoods, local communities received a lot of support from civil society actors, the (proposed) mine was run by a Chinese, state-owned company, and the mining was deeply tied to the interests of political elites (in Myanmar, the government co-operated the mine, while in Ghana, then-President Akufo-Addo conceived bauxite mining as crucial for his “Ghana Beyond Aid” political vision).

Yet, upon closer look, significant differences between mining projects become apparent. These are closely related to the political culture and levels of polarization. In Myanmar, an authoritarian government and a culture of impunity among security forces undermined trust in state institutions by the local communities, while also facilitating disproportionate violence by the police. Ghana, by contrast, is a stable democracy. Furthermore, the president supporting the Atewa Forest Mine (Nana Akufo-Addo) had close ties to the region, which facilitated mutual trust and a desire for non-confrontational means of conflict. Likewise, the Atewa region has been home to artisanal gold mining and agriculture for hundreds of years, meaning there is an established (even if still sometimes tense) culture of co-existence between both industries. By contrast, communities have complained about the Monywa Letpadaung Mine and its adverse impacts at least since 1996 and have felt that the state has always ignored their concerns.

A Conflict-Sensitive Approach to a Just Renewable Energy Transition

To conclude, research demonstrates that not only climate change itself but also climate change mitigation measures like the renewable energy can be a major source of local tensions and even of political violence and instability. However, if designed in a conflict-sensitive way, the renewable energy transition can occur in a peaceful and just way.

First and foremost, this requires an early, inclusive, transparent, and open-ended consultation with the local communities affected by the mining activities. Government, shareholders, and mining companies must also watch their investments and avoid contexts where mining is associated with intense tensions, local resistance, and human rights violations. This is also a long-term investment into supply chain security, given that once mining conflicts occur, a quarter of all projects suffer from (costly) delays and cancellations. Finally, more efforts need to go into the monitoring of mining conflicts and into researching strategies for conflict-sensitivity in such contexts.

This blog was originally published on the Frankfurt Peace Research Institute (PRIF) website.

Event Note: The topic of this Blogpost will further be discussed on November 18 in the following XCEPT Webinar: “Critically insecure? Critical minerals in the context of geopolitical competition, social conflict and environmental sustainability”. Moderated by Tobias Ide, Daryl Bosu, Joel Watson, Zung Ting, Ramon Balcazar and Shahila Perumalpillai will discuss how states, companies and civil society navigate the tensions between securing critical mineral supply chains, protecting the environment and upholding social rights.