Highlights
- Renewable energy technologies are driving a massive mining boom in developing countries.
- Local communities are being exploited and significant environmental damage is occurring.
- Over 70% of critical minerals like cobalt are mined in regions with weak regulations.
- Mining involves child labor and leads to devastating ecological consequences.
- The clean energy transition risks becoming a new form of resource colonialism.
- Multinational corporations are profiting while local communities suffer.
The green energy revolution comes with a dark reality according to a recent report. Renewable energy technologies are fueling a massive mining boom in the Global South. A new study, Energy Transition and Mining in the Global South by João Henrique Santana Stacciarini and Ricardo Junior de Assis Fernandes Gonçalves, exposes how the world’s push for clean energy is accelerating the extraction of critical minerals—like cobalt, nickel, lithium, copper, and rare earth elements—primarily from countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The findings reveal a disturbing pattern manifest in the developing world. These minerals are mined in nations with weaker regulations, exploited by multinational corporations, and extracted under conditions that cause widespread environmental destruction, human rights abuses, and economic dependency.
The Hidden Cost of Clean Energy
The authors argue that while wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles are marketed as sustainable solutions, they require significantly more raw materials than fossil fuel-based energy sources. For example, an offshore wind farm demands up to 15 times more minerals than a natural gas plant of the same capacity. The mining rush to meet this demand has concentrated power in countries like China, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Chile, where the costs of extraction are disproportionately borne by low-income workers and Indigenous communities.
Exploitation in the Global South
The study highlights that over 70% of the world’s cobalt—an essential ingredient in EV batteries—comes from the DRC, where child labor and deadly working conditions are rampant. Indonesia, now the top global supplier of nickel, is seeing its coastal waters poisoned by toxic waste from mines that power Tesla and other EV manufacturers. Meanwhile, Chile and Argentina, home to 60% of the world’s lithium reserves, are watching their already scarce water supplies dry up due to lithium extraction, threatening local farming communities. In Myanmar, rare earth mining is linked to illegal operations controlled by military-backed militias.
The Dark Side of Supply Chains
Perhaps the most shocking revelation is how multinational corporations and Western governments turn a blind eye to these abuses while securing their supply chains. Many of these minerals pass through China’s refining and processing infrastructure, reinforcing Beijing’s dominance over global critical mineral markets. Meanwhile, mining profits do not stay in the Global South—instead, they flow to corporations in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia, while local communities are left with poisoned water, land degradation, and few economic benefits.
Implications for the West and Future of Mining
For the U.S. and its allies, these findings underscore the urgent need to reduce reliance on China while avoiding the mistakes of past extractive industries. The authors suggest that without serious policy interventions, the clean energy transition risks becoming just another form of resource colonialism. Countries in the Global North must rethink their approach by incentivizing responsible mining, investing in recycling technologies, and securing domestic production of these critical minerals.
The takeaway? The energy transition is not as “clean” as it seems. Unless global leaders address the hidden costs of critical mineral extraction, the race for renewables could deepen global inequality rather than solve the climate crisis.
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