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The decarbonisation divide: Contextualizing landscapes of low-carbon exploitation and toxicity in Africa
Global Environmental Change ( IF 8.9 ) Pub Date : 2019-12-26 , DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.102028
Benjamin K. Sovacool , Andrew Hook , Mari Martiskainen , Andrea 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 research, 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 in Ghana. 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 formalisation 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.



中文翻译:

脱碳鸿沟:将非洲低碳开采和毒性景观背景化

关于低碳转型的许多学术研究都集中在诸如电动汽车或太阳能电池板之类的创新的传播或使用上,却忽视或掩盖了采矿和废物流等下游和上游过程。然而,在这两个极端中,新兴的低碳交通和电力转型有效地牵涉到有毒污染,生物多样性丧失,性别不平等加剧,剥削童工以及少数民族的征服。我们将这些过程概念化为正在出现的“脱碳鸿沟”的一部分。为了对政治生态学,可持续发展转型和能源正义研究有清晰的见解来说明这种分歧,本研究取材于广泛的实地考察,研究了刚果民主共和国(DRC)的钴开采,以及加纳电子废物的处理和回收。它利用了来自与专家进行的34次半结构化研究访谈和对手工钴矿开采者,电子垃圾场工人和其他利益相关者的69次社区访谈以及50次现场访问的原始数据。这些访问包括在刚果民主共和国的30个工业和手工钴矿山,以及相关的基础设施,例如贸易仓库和加工中心,以及对Agbogbloshie废料场和附近地区的20次访问,以及当地的废物收集场,电气维修店,回收中心和社区加纳的电子垃圾场。该研究提出了一套协调一致的政策建议,以更好地解决开发和毒性问题,这些建议超出了经常被吹捧的形式化或融资解决方案。最终,

更新日期:2019-12-27
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