Why we need to think together the mobility and raw materials transition
Globally and locally, it is those people who suffer the least from the consequences of the climate catastrophe. The majority of people severely affected by the effects of global warming live on the African continent, in the South-East and South-Asian regions, in the Pacific and in Latin America. There, climate and environmental crises are not a threat in the future, but often already a bitter reality.The consequences of global warming are far-reaching. While the temperature rise in some regions will be so drastic that it will be considered uninhabitable for humans in just a few decades, other places will be completely destroyed due to rising sea levels. Nevertheless, more and more greenhouse gases are emitted every year. For large-scale mining, industrial and infrastructure projects, ecosystems and thus also livelihoods are damaged or destroyed.
The transport sector, which generates around one-fifth of CO2 emissions globally and in Germany, is a major contributor to global warming. In Germany, most of these greenhouse gas emissions are due to cars with internal combustion engines. In addition, there is a high level of land consumption as well as particulate matter and noise pollution in the transport sector.
Above all, however, current automotiveity is not only based on the combustion of oil, but also on the extraction and further processing of numerous raw materials. In each car, for example, there are several hundred kilograms of aluminium and steel. These two metals make up by far the largest proportion of the volume of the so-called construction materials. Their production from iron and bauxite ores is extremely energy-intensive. For example, global steel production from 1900 to 2015 caused an estimated nine percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions during this period. The aluminium sector is responsible for around two percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. Accordingly, the two metals also cause a significant proportion of CO2 emissions along the entire value chain of a car, namely about 60 percent.
At the same time, mining of ores – which are mainly imported into Germany from Brazil and Guinea – is often accompanied by serious human rights violations and pollution. Production is often cheapest where human rights, social and environmental standards are lowest.
The relevance of responsible raw material procurement by car companies has only received more attention in connection with the drive turnaround. The massive increase in demand for metals such as lithium, cobalt, graphite and nickel due to electromobility has brought human rights, social and environmental problems in the mining of these raw materials into focus. In the meantime, the Federal Government also refers to the automotive industry as a ‘risk sector relevant to human rights’.
In the transport policy debate, the social, environmental and human rights costs of extracting raw materials for the automotive industry remain out of the question. With this study, we want to make a contribution to pointing out those outsourced and invisible costs. In chapter two, we give an overview of automotiveity in Germany and take a look at the transport policy agenda of political leaders and actors in industry, before showing and presenting the effects of car traffic in Germany on climate, environment and health. We outline why, on the one hand, electric cars are the necessary alternative to the internal combustion engine despite the negative side effects and, on the other hand, especially forms of mobility beyond the privately owned car must be promoted. In the third chapter, we examine which metallic raw materials are contained in cars and the consequences of their extraction in different states. We show that the procurement of raw materials is politically supported by German industries and point to legislative processes to regulate the human rights and environmental due diligence of companies. Following on from this, we present in chapter four policy recommendations for a globally just and sustainable mobility and raw materials transition in Germany and Europe.
