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The decarbonisation divide: contextualizing landscapes of low-carbon exploitation and toxicity in Africa

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Version 2 2023-06-12, 09:17
Version 1 2023-06-09, 19:56
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-12, 09:17 authored by Benjamin SovacoolBenjamin Sovacool, Andrew HookAndrew Hook, Mari MartiskainenMari Martiskainen, Andrea BrockAndrea Brock, Bruno Turnheim
Much academic research on low-carbon transitions focuses on the diffusion or use of innovations such as electric vehicles or solar panels, but overlooks or obscures downstream and upstream processes, such as mining or waste flows. Yet it is at these two extremes where emerging low-carbon transitions in mobility and electricity are effectively implicated in toxic pollution, biodiversity loss, exacerbation of gender inequality, exploitation of child labor, and the subjugation of ethnic minorities. We conceptualize these processes as part of an emerging “decarbonisation divide.” To illustrate this divide with clear insights for political ecology, sustainability transitions, and energy justice, this study draws from extensive fieldwork examining cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and the processing and recycling of electronic waste in Ghana. It utilizes original data from 34 semi-structured research interviews with experts and 69 community interviews with artisanal cobalt miners, e-waste scrapyard workers, and other stakeholders, as well as 50 site visits. These visits included 30 industrial and artisanal cobalt mines in the DRC, as well as associated infrastructure such as trading depots and processing centers, and 20 visits to the Agbogbloshie scrapyard and neighborhood alongside local waste collection sites, electrical repair shops, recycling centers, and community e-waste dumps. The study proposes a concerted set of policy recommendations for how to better address issues of exploitation and toxicity, suggestions that go beyond the often-touted solutions of formalization or financing. Ultimately, the study holds that we must all, as researchers, planners, and citizens, broaden the criteria and analytical parameters we use to evaluate the sustainability of low-carbon transitions.

Funding

INNOPATHS -Managing Technology Transition; G2118; EUROPEAN UNION; 730403

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Global Environmental Change

ISSN

0959-3780

Publisher

Elsevier

Volume

60

Article number

a102028

Department affiliated with

  • SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2019-12-16

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2020-01-31

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2019-12-12

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