This documentary shows the impacts that the European “green” transition is having in countries such as Chile and Argentina, exporters of lithium, copper and green hydrogen, needed for decarbonization technologies and most importantly, for one of the central elements of the transition: electromobility. The aim is to raise awareness about the impacts hearing the voices of testimonies, activists, community leaders and experts who explain how green extractivism and “green” growth is destroying ecosystems, communities and deepening inequalities in a new wave of colonialism. In addition, it wants to go one step further pointing at the need to search for alternatives based on degrowth.
A year ago a team from the Debt Observatory in Globalisation travelled to the lithium extraction and green hydrogen production areas of Chile and Argentina to explore and collect data on the impacts that the boom in the demand for the green transition is generating in the territories of extraction. This fact finding mission consisted on interviews, visits and conversations with activists and experts from these two countries, and two products emerged: the self-published book “The mine, the factory and the store“, and the documentary “The hidden cost”.
The documentary, is an invitation to listen to their voices, but also to ask ourselves: what are we going to do from the Global North?
