The Mineral Politics of the Just transitions with Thea Riofrancos

GND Media

To say the modern world is dependent on materials we dig out of the ground is an understatement. From the lithium in your phone battery to the cup you're drinking your tea in, mining and mineral extraction play a vital part of how survive on earth.
With the race to get off fossil fuels, and electrify our entire transport network kicking off, dependency on rare earth minerals like lithium is going to increase, and the conditions of the people mining it brought ever to our attention.
This week on the show Lucy and Andrew are joined by Thea Riofrancos, Professor at Providence College in the US and the author of "Resource Radicals" and "A Planet to Win". They discuss how Lithium is a key resource when it comes to the transition away from fossil fuels, how mineral exploitation in South America has shaped the politics of the region and how Unions are now driving the just transition in the Americas.
Links
Check out Thea's website here
https://www.theariofrancos.com/

The Lithium Problem (interview by Alyssa Battistoni). Dissent, 2023.
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-lithium-problem

Electric vehicles alone won’t take us to a decarbonized future. The Hill, 2023
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/3861795-electric-vehicles-alone-wont-take-us-to-a-decarbonized-future/

Chile: White Gold Rush. Chatham House’s The World Today, 2022
https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2022-06/chile-white-gold-rush

Shifting Mining from the Global South Misses the Point of Climate Justice. Foreign Policy, 2022
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/07/renewable-energy-transition-critical-minerals-mining-onshoring-lithium-evs-climate-justice/?tpcc=recirc_latest062921

Shoutout
Friend of the show Asad Rahman of War on Want, for his stirring speech at COP 28 on Palestine.

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