NACCB 2024 Plenary: Critical Ecosystems vs Critical Minerals? (June 25, 2024)

Organized by: UBC Centre for Climate Justice (climatejustice...) & Interdisciplinary Biodiversity Solutions Collaboratory (ibios.ubc.ca)
Description: As we face compounding ecological, economic, and social crises, important tensions have emerged in how to tackle the urgency of solutions affecting climate, biodiversity and Indigenous sovereignty within the context of climate justice. Often, as researchers and movement leaders, we are focused on one part of the problem, which can exacerbate near and far-reaching impacts to people and planet. This panel will explore those tensions as they are arising in relation to critical minerals extraction, an industry that is both essential to many high-profile ‘climate solutions’ such as electric vehicles and solarization, and also disruptive to local biodiversity and lifeways on a potentially large scale. Critical minerals development is accelerating rapidly in many countries around the world. However, in many places this process is accelerating at a rate that does not allow for a meaningful conversation on the risks, negative impacts, and potential benefits to communities and biodiversity. We will hear from leading researchers and movement leaders on the tensions that are emerging between climate and biodiversity in critical minerals mining, and under what conditions critical minerals can be produced in ways that safeguard biodiversity and the rights of communities while meeting the needs for essential climate solutions.