Modern slavery encompasses slavery, servitude, the worst forms of child labour, forced labour, and deceptive recruiting for labour or services. The Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) introduced reporting requirements for larger companies operating in Australia to assess the risks of modern slavery practices in their operations and supply chains. The manufacture of renewables is likely to be caught by these provisions.
The obsession with a transition to clean energy has accelerated the growth of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles. This obsession heavily relies on the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China as a hub for quarrying, processing, refining, manufacturing, and exporting materials and components for green technology supply chains. Uyghurs and others are subject to state-imposed forced labour. Similar abuses are taking place in mining rare earth in Myanmar, lithium in Zimbabwe, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the list grows.
Last month, the Global Legal Action Network and the World Uyghur Congress won a case that affected all UK companies trading with China. They challenged the decision of the United Kingdom National Crime Agency’s refusal to investigate Uyghur forced labour cotton imported from China. Consequently, electric car, wind turbine and solar panel importers will be worried about their supply chains. If a company knows or suspects that the imported goods were produced in criminal circumstances - such as through forced Uyghur labour - they could be prosecuted under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2022.
What can our renewables heroes do to avoid modern slavery associated with the manufacture of renewables? The best would be to stop believing in climate change as a harmful event. Otherwise, they could spend money on supply chain due diligence or bring more manufacturing processes onshore.
To put things into perspective, global warming, aka climate change, may increase economic growth—less domestic heating and better agricultural output. Increasing growth may minimise the negative impacts of global warming—better buildings and insurance. Not adopting policies to reduce global warming may yield the economic benefits of warming and avoid the economic costs of those policies. Of course, such thinking is anathema to the global elite, the renewables and human rights industries, who want a ‘just transition’ to renewable nirvana.
Solar panels, for example, can only be produced with coal, oil, gas, and hardwood. Coal is required as a reducing agent for silicon making and as a source of heat and electricity for the industrial process required to manufacture solar panels. These processes need a continuous supply of electricity, which renewables cannot provide. Australia is banning the use of the materials that renewables require. Renewables are made in places with poor workers’ rights or, more likely, none.
As bad, the average lifespan of the newest utility-scale solar panels is a fraction of the 25 years marketed. It is more like 15 years. Older solar panels used to ‘live’ longer. Newer ones are optimised for the lowest raw materials and energy use, so serious failures occur after about 10 years. Renewables must be decommissioned and disposed of. Renewables are not renewable.
The Prime Minister wants to bring aspects of renewable manufacturing onshore courtesy of the Future Made in Australia spendathon, which included $1.5 billion for battery and solar panel supply chains via the Solar Sunshot Program and Battery Breakthrough Initiative.
At the same time and as inconsistent as ever, the Prime Minister heavied Northern Territory Mining Minister Mark Monaghan to reject Energy Resources of Australia’s request to extend a lease over the undeveloped Jabiluka uranium deposit. Kakadu National Park will be expanded to cover Jabiluka.
This decision is reminiscent of the Hawke government in 1990, which banned reopening a gold, platinum and palladium mine at Coronation Hill. The Hill had been mined decades earlier and was thought economical under new techniques and improved market prices. The Greens manipulated local Aborigines and stopped the venture. Although the site was nowhere near the wetlands of Kakadu, the pristine wetlands were featured nightly on ABC television for the miseducation of eastern state voters. Hawke needed the second preference of green voters. Kakadu National Park was expanded to cover Coronation Hill.
The more Australia refuses to develop its resources, the more will be developed in nations with poor records, including not-so-modern slavery. Or it could buck the trend and allow warming to occur and reap the benefits. Increased greenhouse gas concentrations will contribute to slight warming, but humans are slaves to a non-problem.
Gary Johns is chair of Close the Gap Research
