Financial institutions are lacking safeguards to prevent harms caused by mining the resources needed for the energy transition, analysis of the sector’s financing finds
Really weird title. TL;dr: ESG-conscious banks fail to account for the impact of mining in their accounting.
I see this kind of articles as a good thing: mining is a polluting process that can be much cleaner but lacks incentives to do it. The only incentive right now is to be the cheapest. If some actors start accepting to pay an extra for ethically and environmentally friendly mining, the industry can change.
This discussion has fundamentally very little to do with the energy transition and is more generally about destructive mining practices. The link to the energy transition in my opinion is intentionally damaging to the industry, or am I missing something here?
This discussion has fundamentally very little to do with the energy transition and is more generally about destructive mining practices
What is called energy transition (I believe energy addition is a more accurate term) needs several elements that come from mining. So I am not sure I understand why you consider that mining should not be part of the conversation, since it is a necessary step.
Btw I think I don’t understand what you mean with your last sentence.
Sorry, I mean to say that the impact of mining is not limited to the energy transition in the way this article appears to focus on it. I do not disagree with any of your points.
In my opinion the headline should simply read
Major financiers neglect
energy transitionrisks from mining.Ah ok, thank you for clarifying that!
I feel like a lot of people don’t understand that you can’t consume your way to using less.
#1 is “reduce” because if you just use less, then you don’t need to mine anything more, or farm anything more, or build anything more. Ideally, if you care about the environment that’s the most direct way to improve things.
That isn’t to say that we don’t need to build out greener infrastructure. What it does mean is that anytime that we are doing industrial scale manufacturing like this, we have to be very careful because it’s going to inherently damage the environment, and if you’re going to do that you need to do the math to figure out if you’re doing something that’s net good.
I think a lot of people aren’t there yet, they just assume that you do the thing that’s good and you’re doing good without regard for the cost.
