A recent report published by the International Energy Agency states that meeting the Paris agreement’s climate targets would send demand skyrocketing for the “critical minerals” used to produce clean energy technologies. And we are on the verge of a global boom in mining linked to the energy transition. These facts raise an uncomfortable question that reverberates around the world: does fighting the climate crisis mean sacrificing communities and ecosystems? The supply chains that produce green technologies begin in extractive frontiers like the Atacama desert. Will green technology kill Chile's deserts? – video But extracting lithium from this unique landscape comes at a grave environmental and social cost. Underneath the Atacama salt flat lies most of the world’s lithium reserves Chile currently supplies almost a quarter of the global market. Lithium batteries play a key role in this transition: they power electric vehicles and store energy on renewable grids, helping to cut emissions from transportation and energy sectors. To do so, energy systems around the world must transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. In order to stave off the worst of the accelerating climate crisis, we need to rapidly reduce carbon emissions. I had come to the salt flat to research an emerging environmental dilemma. The sun bore down on us intensely – the Atacama desert boasts the Earth’s highest levels of solar radiation, and only parts of Antarctica are drier. A vertiginous drive had taken me and two other researchers through a sandstorm, a rainstorm and the peaks and valleys of this mountainous region of northern Chile. It took me a moment to get my bearings on my first visit, standing on this windswept plateau of 3,000 sq km (1,200 sq miles). The Atacama salt flat is a majestic, high-altitude expanse of gradations of white and grey, peppered with red lagoons and ringed by towering volcanoes.
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