HELSINKI (Finland), The negative environmental and social impacts of some “sustainable solutions” such as electrification of economy, including electric vehicles, have posed a challenge to Europe, which also reveals the hypocrisy involved in this issue, according to a Finnish official.

Jyrki Katainen, President of Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, said this while answering a question from Emirates News Agency (WAM) on the environmental pollution and forced displacement of communities caused by large scale mining of rare minerals that are essential raw materials of batteries of electric vehicles and similar solutions.

Political, security issue

The current geopolitical situation in Europe has triggered a debate whether the continent can depend on critical raw material imports like in the past, said Katainen who was European Commission Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness. Prior to that, he had held the positions of Prime Minister of Finland and Finance Minister.

During an interaction with a group of international journalists who visited Helsinki on a media trip last week organised by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Katainen pointed out that solving this issue is extremely challenging as rare earth minerals cannot be produced.

He made it clear that Europe cannot always rely on a particular country or direction to get the required resources. This is becoming a more and more political and security issue, the official stressed.

The second point is, he noted, whether the extraction of these critical rare minerals is socially and environmentally sustainable.

Hypocrisy on mining

He pointed out that there have been loud voices in Western countries for electrification of the economy to reduce CO2 emissions. “However, we have closed our eyes on part of the challenge. Where from all those materials needed for wind power turbines, for instance, are coming and what are the social conditions in those places? There is a certain amount of hypocrisy [in answering these questions],” the official explained.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), solar photovoltaic (PV) plants, wind farms and electric vehicles (EVs) require more minerals to build than their fossil fuel-based counterparts. A typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car and an onshore wind plant requires nine times more mineral resources than a gas-fired plant.

Production and processing of mineral resources gives rise to a variety of environmental and social issues that, if poorly managed, can harm local communities and disrupt supply, said the IEA report titled “The role of critical minerals in clean energy,” published in 2022.

Circular solutions

Katainen said these issues were discussed in the seventh World Circular Economy Forum 2023, held in Helsinki from 30th May to 2nd June with around 2,000 participants from across the globe, and about 6,000 online attendees from 143 countries. Experts at the Forum delved deep into creating new economy, businesses, and jobs, by leveraging circular solutions to address the triple planetary crises such as climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss.

The president of Sitra further explained that mining is a delicate issue everywhere, but Finland has formulated extremely strict environmental regulation in this sector. The Geological Survey of Finland, the authority in charge of mining, has developed sustainable mining practices because they had already realised years ago that this would be a big issue, Katainen said.

Finnish regulations

However, electrification and the required raw materials are a tougher issue. “The problem is so complex,” he said.

Talking about the existing EU regulations on mining, Katainen said, “I would say they are relatively good. Then different Member States have interpreted it differently. In Nordic countries, I would say generally that the social aspect is even stricter. The recycled content in the batteries is one way to address this issue. It tries to decrease the amount of raw materials needed for batteries.”

The EU regulation in this regard envisages to create market for recycled materials, he added.

Source: Emirates News Agency