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Health & safety Adapt to the climate


Extreme weather events have taken place across the world with increasing regularity in recent years, due largely to the ongoing effects of climate change. In many places, this has had severe


ramifi cations for mining sites, affecting the cost of operations but also impacting worker safety and security. Andrea Valentino speaks with Christian Spano from the International Council on Mining and Metals, and Jan Morrill from the Earthworks NGO to fi nd out how the industry is working to safeguard itself against this ongoing threat – and whether more fundamental changes are needed if global mining is to be serious about fi ghting climate change over the long term.


I


n 1997, the innocuously named Global Climate Coalition published an advert in the press. Festooned with a picture of smiling children, the full-page ad begged the US president to not “risk our economic future”. Stressing that Americans have worked hard to make their country the world’s preeminent economic power, the ad warns Bill Clinton that a planned UN climate agreement would jeopardise generations of progress. “The big countries that compete with America for jobs, trade, and economic security have everything to gain and nothing to lose,” the poster adds. “This also means America’s sacrifices will not produce environmental gains.” Unbeknown to many at the time, the Global Climate Coalition was actually not very interested in the environment. It was, after all, a front


organisation, paid for by big oil – and big mining. It goes without saying, of course, that such a brazen rejection of the industry’s climactic responsibilities is unimaginable these days. The overwhelming consensus, both inside and outside the industry, is that mining can often be dreadful for the planet’s future, with corporate websites from Glencore to Vale touting acres of sustainable promises. And though success is sometimes spotty, this change in attitude can be detected in the numbers. According to work by the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), for instance, its members cut their carbon footprint by 6% between 2016 and 2018. That’s echoed by progress at specific companies. In October 2021, Rio Tinto pledged $7.5bn to halve its direct emissions by the end of the decade.


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World Mining Frontiers / www.nsenergybusiness.com


orld Mining Frontiers / www.nsenergybusiness.com


BlueRingMedia/Shutterstock.com


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