The myriad of compromises embedded into the green frontier continue to be avoided because of the immediate threat posed by the alternative — a fossil fuel-induced ecological collapse.
That alternative is the here and now. It is the vengeful wildfires, once figments of filmmakers’ imaginations, becoming mainstays of Australian summers. It’s our world-leading rate of mammal extinctions. It’s the Torres Strait Islands being engulfed by advancing seas. And it’s ancestral beings like the Murray-Darling Basin, an epic life support system which has roared for millennia, proportionately being strangled to just a trickle.
Not only is the present an untenable proposition, but it’s merely an entree for what’s to come if business as usual succeeds. There is no argument that within this equation, the only option is to pull out all the stops to avert the full wrath of a warming planet.
But no different to the gold rush or iron ore boom of previous eras, the clean energy revolution is riddled with violent injustice and compromise. Rhyming with its historical equivalents, the economics of self-interest culminates with the rights of Indigenous Peoples being bulldozed and our lands being exploited for others’ gain.
Globally, more than half of the minerals required for the transition are located on Indigenous peoples’ lands. Research shows that 85% of the world’s lithium reserves and resources overlap with Indigenous peoples’ lands as do 75% of manganese and 57% of nickel reserves and resources. Meanwhile, demand for these commodities is projected to grow 20-25 times.
The International Energy Agency projects lithium demand for electric batteries will grow 40 times on current levels by 2040. It’s the same story for other resources collapsed under the “critical minerals” banner. Copper demand is projected to grow by 68 times, manganese demand by 92-fold, and nickel demand by 89-fold.
Last year, Australia was in the top five global suppliers for 15 different minerals. It was the number-one supplier in the world for lithium, gold, iron ore, lead, nickel, rutile, uranium, zinc and zircon. It was also second for coal and gas exports.
Despite being the founders of sustainability and the number one shareholders of a just transition, governments, rapacious mining companies and key players from within the “green” movement are working in tandem to position Indigenous Peoples as the necessary collateral damage.
Reading the writing on the wall, Eva Lawler’s Northern Territory government has rewritten the mining royalties scheme in a way that effectively enables mining companies to take more and pay less.
Lawler’s government is committed to advancing and then buying fracked gas from the Beetaloo Basin, unlocking Santos’ Barossa gas field and building a petrochemicals plant in the Darwin Harbor precinct. Of course, all of these projects are facilitated under the guise of sustainability and each is vehemently opposed by Nurrdalinji, Djingili, Tiwi and Larrakia Traditional Owners.
Roger Cook’s Western Australian (or South Africa East) government amended the 1972 Cultural Heritage Laws after newer legislation enabled the routine obliteration of the 46,000-year-old Juukan Caves and hundreds of other sacred sites.
Having then labelled the destruction of Juukan Gorge as “one of the most shameful happenings in Australian history”, Tanya Plibersek has idled on delivering long overdue changes to federal cultural heritage laws, as her colleagues boast of turning Australia into a renewable energy “superpower”. This includes Australia extraordinarily being added as a “domestic source” within the meaning of Title III of the United States Defense Production Act.
This creates a scenario whereby existing mines, almost all of which were established through unjust legislative mechanisms and exorbitant power imbalances, will continue to expand.
But it’s not just what’s underneath the surface that poses a significant threat to Indigenous Peoples, it’s also the above-ground exploits that pose another pervasive challenge. Indigenous territories also boast all of the advantages for solar and wind farming.
Within this current dichotomy, the dominant legal and ideological paradigm from across the political spectrum is that Aboriginal territories should be streamlined for development. But instead of this being done with optimistic consent, in joint partnership and on just and equal terms, the expectation is that Aboriginal people should merely be passive beneficiaries through the form of unfair, prohibitive and paternalistic mining royalty schemes.
Presently, the energy transition is undeserving of being labelled “clean”, “green”, “ethical” or “sustainable”. Relational alternatives that value cultural reciprocity and Indigenous People’s rights exist — ones that would not only protect biodiversity, natural habitats and the age-old stories archived into the Country, but also lift Indigenous communities up through dignified, self-determined and circular wealth creation.
But the cold hard reality is that without a radical pivot, the renewable energy transition will multiply the abuses levelled towards Indigenous Peoples; ensuring that we are, once again, the necessary collateral damage in pursuit of “the greater good”.
