Worldwide the production of #renewableenergy (RE) is increasing. This, of course, is necessary to catch up with the Paris Agreement. The purchases increase of windmills and solar panels makes RE more competitive than fossil fuel energy.

Yet, the environmental impact from the production process of renewables seems to completely overshadow its gains. Renewables require base metals like nickel and cobalt (Kas, 2018). In line with the purchases increase, the global demand for cobalt grew by approx. 13% annually between 2010 and 2017, whereas the demand for nickel grew by approx. 7% annually between 2015 and 2018. Actually, the demand growth of these #basemetals is greater because they are used to maintain battery efficiency, thus overcome production fluctuation (Statista, 2018a; 2018b).

As a result, vast natural areas have been replaced by mines that extract such base metals (Statista, 2018; 2018B). Sadly, new #mines are also opened in areas of high biodiversity in countries that had stopped licensing mining permits, like the #Philippines. The Philippines have been suffering from this kind of corruption for many years. Despite the stop of licensing mining permits, the number of mines in the country has strongly increased in the last decade. Natural areas around the mines have been destroyed and biodiversity brutally cut down. Rivers have become so polluted that drinking and fishing is now impossible. Obviously, public authorities did not intervene to protect local people, who did not get anything in return for the destruction of their habitats (Kas, 2018).

Renewables producers seem to be the only one gaining profits from this unsustainable business. To remain competitive in the market, they ignore the origin of the base metals (Kiezebrink, 2018). On the contrary, renewables producers and governments of countries issuing RE parks should be aware of the corruption issues behind mining licensing procedures and should act accordingly (Kas, 2018).