Aapo got up and looked out the window. The Baltic Sea was calm as always at dawn. Many years had passed since the mornings with skies polluted by smog. The social and environmental transformation here had been a success, and everyone contributed to it. Aapo looks proudly at his new electric car. He has been part of this transformation for 10 years, ever since the government promoted the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. By 2030, the entire vehicle fleet will be electric, powered by lithium batteries, a harmless element with no consequences for the environment. At least, for his.
On the other side of the world, when Amaru wakes up, he also looks out the window. The Puna is calm at dawn. Soon he will set off with his herd of llamas in search of food. It has become harder to find food and water in the nearby wetlands, and his old trails are now restricted by wires. In the distance, the smoke from buses signals the arrival of workers at the lithium mines. In his village, there is a new school, a new sports field, and soon there will be a clinic. But despite the improvements, Amaru and his people feel that, along with the lithium, part of their life and environment is being taken away.
Our immediate world encompasses only a few dozen or hundreds of kilometers, and we tend to think that what we do impacts only our immediate surroundings. However, in a globalized world, our decisions can affect remote points on the planet with which we are not in direct contact. The volumes of materials and species we exchange on a global scale have an unprecedented impact. Sciences have been studying these flows of matter and energy between distant places — something known as “telecoupling” — and their environmental and social consequences.
An electric vehicle like Aapo’s, made in Europe or Asia, includes parts of very diverse origins. Its batteries are made from plastics and common metals, but to operate, they require the lightest of all metals, lithium. Lithium is a simple element but difficult to obtain and process. Much of the lithium used today in batteries is found as lithium chloride dissolved in the salt flats of the Andes. To extract it, it is necessary to process large quantities of brine there, through procedures that require evaporating vast volumes of water, even using fresh underground water. In the arid environments of the Andes, with extreme weather conditions and unique biodiversity, water is a vital and critical resource. To obtain the lithium for Aapo’s car battery, it was probably necessary to use the water that is now missing in Amaru’s Puna. Without that water, the unique biodiversity of those wetlands and the animals’ food, which are essential for supporting his family and the identity of his community, are also gone.
Lithium: From where and to where?
The South American Puna region where Amaru lives is part of the famous “lithium triangle,” which spans parts of Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina and holds more than 60% of the world’s lithium reserves. This has attracted the attention of multinational companies (due to its economic value) and local and foreign governments (due to its strategic value). While its exploitation brings significant economic revenue to these countries, it also represents high risks for the environment and social-ecological justice, which means that people can remain in their own healthy environments. Currently, lithium extraction is extractivist, meaning an intensive appropriation of natural resources that are then exported to global markets. Chile, Argentina, and Brazil are among the top five lithium producers, with Bolivia close to joining this list.
South American lithium is used by China and Northern Global countries to produce batteries for the energy transition. As with other raw materials exported from South America, the economic profits for the country and local communities are minimal, instead absorbing high environmental costs or liabilities. These include the drying up of wetlands (Puna wetlands, the Altiplano, or Atacama), loss of biodiversity and landscapes that form part of local identity, climate changes, and harm to human and environmental health.
Chile, the second-largest producer of lithium from salt flats, is already experiencing socio-environmental consequences. The Atacama Salt Flat is sinking at a rate of one to two centimeters per year, and groundwater levels have dropped by up to 10 meters compared to historical levels. Additionally, the excessive use of freshwater from surrounding deep aquifers has consequences that will undoubtedly be critical in the future due to the region’s arid conditions, with less than 25 mm of annual rainfall. Today, lithium extraction represents, undoubtedly, mortgaging the future of these strategic water reserves. Similar problems are currently being observed in Argentina.
How to achieve a just energy transition globally?
Aapo tries to do his part, but at the same time, unknowingly, he is contributing to catastrophic consequences for Amaru and the socio-ecosystems of South America. Both the companies that manufactured his car and the governments that planned the energy transition only considered the here and now. Unfortunately, South American governments did the same. Taking advantage of the historical moment when an abundant resource reaches high market values, these governments see an excellent opportunity for foreign currency income. The situation also exposes an asymmetry of forces and negotiating capacities for sustainable use of common natural resources. There are even disputes between North America and Asia over control of South American lithium.
What is the solution? First, to ensure that lithium extraction is a socio-environmental sustainable process. For that, we still need to develop techniques that allow extraction without negative consequences. Additionally, South American countries, which primarily export raw materials, must participate in the transition to sustainable mobility at higher stages of the value chain, at least in battery production. Lastly, the actors who develop these transitions must be aware of the consequences of telecouplings and interrelations at each stage of the product life cycle (production, use, and final disposal). This requires communication about the origin of each vehicle component, including traceability regarding the methods of material acquisition.
In 2023, the European Union approved a regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR), an innovative political measure with direct implications for the governance of global commodity chains. It involves traceability where certain goods, such as meat or grains, must certify that their production did not involve deforestation in the country of origin. Similar regulations could be applied to lithium imported into the European Union for the production of batteries or cars. While it will take time to assess the effectiveness of these measures, they could represent a significant first step. We need policies of this kind to develop global thinking, focused not only on trade but also on preserving diversity (biological and cultural), equality of rights, and the health of the planet’s socio-ecosystems. A planet that both Aapo and Amaru are part of.
*Machine translation proofread by Janaína da Silva.
Autor
Biólogo. Investigador y Profesor en el Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal (CONICET) y la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina. Estudia efectos del uso del suelo sobre los servicios ecosistémicos, e interrelaciones a distintas escalas entre biodiversidad, alimentos, agua, salud y cambio climático.
