Alternatives to Green Extractivism

Extractive industries are advancing greenwashing tactics as solutions to climate action.

Mining corporations are collaborating with institutions and governments to aggressively market their destructive and socially unjust activities as solutions to the climate emergency under such terms as ‘climate mining’ and ‘green’ extractivism.

Governments, International Financial Institutions, and even some mainstream social movements are still clinging to economic growth and material expansion as primary societal and developmental goals.

This is creating the space for mining companies to reinvent themselves as green and sustainable friendly change agents despite their dirty, unjust, and unfair supply chains.

Australian ‘green’ extractivism

Scouring the globe, Australian corporations and investors are expanding into new territories for new sources of “critical and strategic” minerals, like lithium, copper, nickel, rare earth, and cobalt.

Like Australia’s foreign policy and aid programs, the “critical and strategic” minerals narrative is focused on Australian national interests, private finance, and Australian diplomatic, strategic, and military priorities

However, like coal, the mining of metals and minerals for low-carbon technologies, renewables, and green tech are equally problematic resulting in threats to biodiversity, livelihoods, and life itself.

Shifting the narrative and centering justice

Through research, campaigning, and advocacy, Aid/Watch aim to expose and hold account Australian miners to their greenwashing tactics and to halt their capture of the energy and digital transition narrative.

We aim to shift the narrative in collaboration with our networks, partners, and frontline communities through sharing and amplification of alternatives beyond mining and extractivism.

We advocate for degrowth to help redistribute global demand for energy and resources, a reduction of our energy and material consumption in the Global North.

We demand that all supply chains of metals and critical minerals are clean, just, and fair.

We collaborate and act in solidarity with our partners, networks and Indigenous peoples, and frontline communities to defend and protect lands, waters, and livelihoods.

Aid/Watch has been a member of the Yes to Life No to Mining (YLNM) global network for the past five years. As part of this network, our work has moved beyond the ‘aid lens’ toward a ‘justice lens’ to address the pressing problems of inequality, land grabbing, and climate change. Part of this is addressing extractivism.