(Washington Insider Magazine) – Rio Tinto and Serbia are forced to suspend plans for a lithium mine after a town council in a local city-state voted to suspend a development plan that allowed the mining of lithium. The decision to suspend the plan was preceded by thousands of people taking to the streets in both Loznica and Belgrade protesting the project due to concerns about the company Rio Tinto’s environmental practices.
Rio Tinto is an Anglo-Australian multinational that has posted $10.4bn in profits in 2020 after being in business for 150 years. In those 150 years the company has faced many accusations of corruption, environmental degradation and human rights violations. Some critics have even said that Rio Tinto is the hallmark of corporate malfeasance… and they may not be wrong.
At this moment, Rio Tinto is fighting a civil lawsuit against the US Securities Exchange Commission that is accusing the company of fraud within its coal firm. This was only after a £27.4m fine executed in 2017 from UK authorities, citing an inability to comply with disclosure regulations. After an incident where hundreds of ancient artifacts were thrown into a dump the chief executive of Rio Tinto’s iron ore operation, Simon Trott, explained that in light of current practices, many may not resonate with the company’s controversial history.
Commentators and sustainability executives alike agree with this assessment, especially after the enhanced scrutiny that occurred over a variety of industries in the wake of the COP26 Summit.
Just last year, one of Australia’s most significant archeological sites, an ancient cave where evidence of 46,000 years of continual occupation was found, was deliberately blown up by the executive at the time. The reason for this has still not been made public knowledge, and has left local citizens jaded.
After decades of appeals the company has finally agreed to fund an environmental impact study and human rights assessment of its former copper and gold mine in Panguna, Papua New Guinea.
It is claimed that 1 bn tons of mining waste was dumped into the Kawerong-Jaba river and that it still wreaks catastrophic damage. The Jadar mine is estimated to have a 40 year life span and be able to produce over 2 million tons of battery grade carbonate. This would make Rio Tinto one of the top 10 lithium producers in the world. Rio Tinto has stated that the Jadar valley project would adhere to all the latest environmental protection standards, but protests still push that this behavior could create significant damage to the local environment and fauna.
Even with the protests the project is gathering momentum. The Serbian democracy’s shortcomings have raised further concerns as to whether the voices of those protesting are even being heard. This is all occurring while Serbia faces a significant shortage in power for local citizens, and the EU’s pleas for countries to reduce emissions after the devastating information shared at COP26.
In light of all of that, Serbia has pledged to expand coal mining for their power plants – much to the frustration and outrage of environmentalists around the world.
