ABSTRACT
Analyses and policies that address extractive industries and climate change tend to focus on fossil fuels, rarely foregrounding hardrock mining for metals and minerals. While hardrock mining may not extract products that emit greenhouse gases, it has important interfaces with climate change, in how it relates to climate vulnerability, and in how it is central to low-carbon growth. This chapter considers the relevance of these interfaces for conflict and peace and analyzes them through the lens of Catholic social thought and praxis. This includes climate injustice and disparate climate impacts between the Global North and Global South; “extractivism” and harmful senses of development; violence against human rights and environmental defenders; and unique questions of uranium mining and the specter of nuclear arms.
