Mining our way out of the climate crisis: potential environmental risks associated with resourcing low carbon technology

Professor Graham Bird Inaugural Lecture

"The key action required to combat climate change is decarbonization, notably in our energy production and transport sectors. Put another way, we need to stop extracting fossil fuel-based energy sources out of the ground. Low carbon, renewable energy technology and electric vehicle technology are key to decarbonization. This technology requires us to use a number of metal resources (e.g. cobalt, rare earth elements). Therefore somewhat ironically, we are going to have extract these resources out of the ground.

The environmental impacts of metal mining were recorded by the ancient Greek scholars, and more recently my research has focused on the processes through which environmental impacts occur and the modelling the global impact. So whilst there is a potential environmental risk associated with our quest for metals to resource low carbon technology, research also shows that these impacts in modern mining operations can be managed and associated lands remediated. This talk will explain the growth in demand for minerals to resource, low energy technology, exemplify the environmental impacts that may arise, but also the progress that has been made in prevention and remediation of such impacts."