La ecological transition risks turning out to be a dog chasing its tail. If the market European car were to insist on electric following the current pace, to reach the decarbonisation objectives set by the EU for 2050, the planet will lose forest areas equal to 25 thousand hectares in the next 118 years, that is to say an average rate of 18 football fields "deforested" every day. In theBrazilian Amazon, would be razed to the ground almost 14 thousand hectares, that is 46 soccer fields per month.
The shocking study was conducted by two European organizations, the NGO FERN and the Rainforest Foundation Norway, which they presented at the last OECD Forum. In short, if on the one hand electric vehicles allow a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, on the other hand to manufacture the batteries they need lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, niobium, all minerals defined not by chance as critical and that somewhere on the planet must be extracted. And unfortunately it is precisely theLatin america, which at the same time protects the largest and most precious rainforest in the world, an essential reserve of water and biodiversity, as well as the most effective “capturer” of CO2.
Electric cars: 23 million tons of rare metals needed per year
The study by FERN and Rainforest, entities that have as their objective the protection of forests and indigenous populations throughout the world, estimates that to meet the annual demand for electric cars In Europe, always using the current production rate and the announced targets as a yardstick, the automotive industry will need 23 million tons of rare metals per year. And to extract them, we will have to remove many, many trees, the same ones that we should preserve and that sometimes we even try to replant, but obviously in an insufficient way. The authors of the research imagined three different scenarios, including the hypothetical one - but not to be excluded - of the invention of new technologies to build and power electric batteries.
Depending on the scenarios, the most affected countries would still be Indonesia and Brazil, while the European territory would lose less than 1% of green areas. In short, the green transition is on the shoulders of the environment and indigenous populations: the study also reveals that 54% of "critical" minerals are located in territories occupied by vulnerable communities or in proximity to them. "Mining activity - the scholars argue - will cause migratory phenomena". Exactly like the climate change that they would like to combat.
However, European NGOs remain optimistic: this apocalyptic scenario can still be avoided, through the adoption of alternative technologies and diversifying policies for sustainable mobility, which evidently cannot and must not be based primarily on electric cars. By focusing on car sharing, public transport and micromobility, for example, estimates of deforestation of at least 80%. At stake, however, is not only a political objective but the very survival of the Earth: if we continue like this, from now until 2050 the damage to the Amazon forest will be "irreversible", according to scientists, with unimaginable consequences for the ecosystem.