All That Glitters

This chapter examines the paradoxs of the global transition to a low-carbon economy. Accelerating this transition will require massive investment in technologies like wind turbines and electric vehicles, all of which depend on a reliable supply of critical minerals and rare earth elements. While these materials are essential building blocks for low-carbon technologies and digital infrastructures, their extraction carries significant environmental and social costs. This chapter explores the rapid increase in demand for critical minerals and its role in incentivizing poor regulatory oversight, human rights abuses, and environmental damage. It also introduces the idea of a decarbonization divide where the environmental benefits of clean technology are enjoyed by the Global North while the negative externalities of extraction and manufacturing are borne by the Global South. The chapter surveys the economic, social, and environmental costs associated with critical mineral extraction and concludes with a discussion of lithium extraction in South America. Ultimately, the production of clean technology in the Global North is predicated on the degradation and subordination of socio-economic resources in the Global South, which draws attention to unevenness of the low-carbon transition.