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Lecture on "Climate Change and Natural Resources" (Lena Partzsch) - Recording now online

Extractivism: Ringvorlesung

Extractivism: Ringvorlesung

Prof. Dr. Lena Partzsch gave a guest lecture on the topic of supply chain laws and the certification of raw materials at the University of Kassel on Dec. 01, 2022. The talk was part of the lecture series "Climate Change and Natural Resources - Risk or Opportunity?" by the BMBF project "Extractivism". The recording of the lecture is now online (in German).

News from Dec 23, 2022

Supply chain laws and commodity certification are particularly relevant in the context of climate change and the energy transition: While lithium and cobalt, for example, are needed for the construction of solar plants and wind turbines, the extraction of the raw materials often leads to immense environmental and social problems. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, which owns half of the world's cobalt reserves, exploitative and violent practices are used within the extraction process. The European Union (EU) has put in practice due diligence requirements since last year to prevent international trade from financing violence. In doing so, the EU is using its trade power to secure international peace, even if this leads to high prices for imports of natural resources. However, the implementation costs are shown to disadvantage small local producers in particular and exacerbate unequal concentration in the world market. Moreover, stereotypical narratives about the global South and in particular about Africa as a "barbaric" continent are still reproduced. Prof. Partzsch therefore explained the power shifts between global North and global South that accompany such laws and certifications in the supply chain.

The recording of the lecture is now online (in German).

About the lecture series:

The lecture series "Climate Change and Commodities - Opportunity or Risk?" addresses the relationship between natural resources and climate change from empirical, regional and/or theoretical perspectives. The guest lectures not only analyse the risks of the relationship between commodities and climate change, but also highlight opportunities and chances. The lecture series is organized by "Extractivism", in which the Universities of Kassel and Marburg Universities of Kassel and Marburg with two regional research centres and two Merian centres do research on the topics of natural resources, extractivism and societies.

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