Why renewable energy may not be as ‘clean’ as you think

Last week we hosted a visit to Glasgow by Lucio Cuenca from Chile. He is the Director of the Observatory for Environmental Conflicts in Latin America and the coordinator of the organising committee for the People’s Summit in Chile, planned as a parallel event to this year’s UN Climate Conference.

He was in the UK to ask questions at the AGM of mining firm BHP Billiton and came to Scotland to talk about this and the Chilean experience of organising civil society around the UN Climate Conference, just as we are beginning to do ahead of next year’s conference in Glasgow.

While he was here, he met Glasgow councillors, spoke to youth activists, held a meeting with the environment, development and social groups who are gearing up for the 2020 climate conference coming to Scotland, and gave an evening lecture on BHP and more generally on the impacts of mining companies in Chile.

BHP is trying to position itself as a leader in the transition to a zero-carbon world because they produce the minerals needed to boost renewable energy and make electric car batteries and motors. The chief executive has said the company is “the locomotive of the green future”.

This despite the fact that BHP was the only mining company in a recent Guardian Top 20 carbon polluting companies. BHP mines copper in Chile and coal in Australia and Colombia, including a one-third share in the controversial Cerrejón coal mine, the largest in Latin America.

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Why renewable energy may not be as ‘clean’ as you think – Dr Richard Dixon