Resource Extraction Industries Research Articles

Does natural resources rent promote carbon neutrality: The role of digital finance

China is regarded as the leading carbon emitter country in the world. Therefore, China has been striving to achieve carbon neutrality. To move towards carbon neutrality targets, there is a need to understand/explore the drivers of carbon emissions. Hence, this empirical investigation discerns the impact of natural resources rent, digital finance, and the combined effect of natural resources rent and digital finance on carbon emissions for China for the period of 1990–2022. This study utilizes a novel augmented ARDL approach. Our empirical results reveal that natural resources escalate carbon emissions during the short-run and long-run. On the contrary, digital finance curbs emissions across time horizons. Further, the combined impact of natural resources and digital finance is negative, indicating that natural resources amid digital finance impede carbon emissions in China. We propose policymakers should introduce policies to discourage natural resource extraction. For this purpose, taxes on natural resource extraction industries may be applied.

Environmental Justice and Resource Extraction: Analyzing the Social Dynamics of Mining Projects

Environmental justice issues are increasingly prevalent in resource extraction industries, particularly in the context of mining projects. This study aims to investigate the social dynamics surrounding mining activities and their implications for environmental justice. Using a qualitative approach, including literature review and library research, this research explores the multifaceted aspects of environmental justice in the context of mining projects. The primary objective is to identify the underlying social factors that contribute to environmental injustices in resource extraction activities. The study examines various dimensions of environmental justice, including access to information, public participation, and distributive fairness. Furthermore, it investigates the differential impacts of mining projects on vulnerable and marginalized communities, as well as the challenges they face in seeking redress and equitable treatment. By analyzing case studies and scholarly literature, this research provides insights into the complex social dynamics shaping environmental justice outcomes in resource extraction contexts. The findings highlight the importance of effective governance mechanisms, regulatory frameworks, and community engagement processes in addressing environmental justice concerns and promoting sustainable resource management practices. Moreover, the study underscores the need for interdisciplinary approaches and collaboration among stakeholders to ensure equitable outcomes and mitigate the adverse social and environmental impacts of mining activities.

Experimental Model to Study Characteristics of Radon Cover in Waste Landfills

Waste from resource extraction industries contains uranium and thorium decay chain radionuclides. One important radiological impact of these wastes is the release of radon into the atmosphere. Therefore, the prediction/evaluation of radon flux and the effectiveness of different covers are the major elements in radiation protection, long-term safety aspects, and the modeling of radon release into the environment for a final assessment of radiological impacts and required remediation actions. A measurement system has been designed based on the transient-diffusion method to evaluate radon exhalation by the short-time accumulation technique. The validity of the laboratory model to quickly estimate the radon release from soils, the diffusion coefficient, and the effect of covers was investigated. From the results obtained from the experimental model, it was observed that after a 0.5-m(1-m) cover layer, the radon flux reduction factor increases from 1.3(2.1) for sand to about 2(3) for clay. The results show that the effectiveness of the cover layer studied is 3, which is similar to theoretical and experimental results in uranium tailings ponds.

“The Times They Are A-Changin' “ – research trends and perspectives of reindeer pastoralism – A review using text mining and topic modelling

A literature review on reindeer pastoralism was performed to assess research trends within this multifaceted field. A machine learning topic modelling approach was applied on abstracts retrieved online. The methodology offers a computational tool to find relevant themes by capturing meaningful structure among large collections of documents. Ten topics were identified. The three fastest expanding topics were related to “Space use”, “Climate change” and “Socio-cultural” aspects. They are interrelated and reflect the main challenges herders and reindeer are facing as their land use competes with an expanding resource extraction industry, arguably for facilitating the Green shift. Climate change thus indirectly influence the herders’ rights to land and resources and form of life. The “Socio-cultural” topic outnumbers the other topics during the last decade. The dominating natural science argument encompasses four topics: “Space use”, “Climate change”, “Herd productivity” and “Grazing and Vegetation”. Research across disciplines is still in its infancy, and an integration between social and ecological issues through a multidisciplinary approach demands for a deeper understanding of the future challenges faced by reindeer pastoralism.

Pop-up restoration in colonial contexts: applying an indigenous food systems lens to ecological restoration

As environmental injustices and their disproportionate harms to Indigenous communities are increasingly acknowledged, restoration strategies are being deployed widely by environmental NGOs, resource extraction industries, and government agencies. The inclusion of Indigenous communities and their knowledges in restoration efforts are often considered progress in the pursuit of ecological reconciliation. However, in some cases we have observed a lack of meaningful progress as settler colonial prescriptions for land-healing can eschew efforts to decolonize ecological restoration — what we have labeled “pop-up restoration.” We consider two restoration efforts underway in St’at’imc and Quw’utsun territories (Canada) and contrast them with what we are learning alongside the communities’ own values and efforts to reclaim and revitalize food systems throughout forest, wetland, and grassland systems. Utilizing culturally appropriate pathways, we then evaluate how applying an Indigenous Food Systems lens to ecological restoration may provide a framework to remedy pop-up restoration, confronting settler colonial aspirations to transform Indigenous homelands while asserting justice in ecological restoration contexts.

How does expropriation affect FDI? A synthetic control analysis of oil and gas sector nationalizations in South America

How do expropriations of foreign oil and gas assets affect the net inflow of FDI? We analyze political and legal developments which led to increased government control of natural resource extraction industries in South America in the early 2000s and discuss at which point in time foreign investors saw legislation as violating their legitimate property rights. We use synthetic control methods (SCM) to date expropriations and quantify their effect on FDI inflows in subsequent years. Strongly negative and statistically significant effects are found for Bolivia and Venezuela, with similar, but less conclusive evidence for Ecuador. SCM approaches which focus on structural characteristics and put little weight on pre-treatment outcomes are better equipped to detect the true “treatment” date than canonical SCMs. This is shown for Argentina where the 2012 nationalization of Repsol hardly affected FDI still down from the reputational damage inflicted by Argentina's 2001 sovereign default.

Designing a decision support tool for integrating ESG into the natural resource extraction industry for sustainable development using the ordinal priority approach

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) has become a critical indicator of sustainability performance. There is a compelling business case for ESG acceptance and integration; however, it is challenging to integrate ESG because there is no decision support tool for integrating ESG into the natural resource exploiting industry. This study applies the Ordinal Priority Approach (OPA) multicriteria decision-making method (MCDM) to develop a hierarchical decision support framework for integrating ESG into the natural resource industry. Twenty-five experts selected from multiple stakeholder groups in the natural resource industry evaluated a total of 3 main criteria and 25 sub-criteria identified through literature reviews and company sustainability reports. The results showed that “E" is the most important factor, followed by “S" and “G.” The overall top five sub-criteria include, Governance structure (G2), Emission (E1), Health and Safety (S1), the composition of the highest governance body and its committee (G6), and Risk Governance (G3). The results imply that managers should seek to integrate ESG into the natural resource industry for sustainable supply chain management because it has a strong potential to improve the credibility of their sustainability performance reporting. Again, managers and practitioners in the natural resource exploiting industry should sustain their environmental efforts, especially regarding emissions but should also consider energy issues and spills to improve the overall sustainability performance of the industry. Policymakers can consider implementing reporting and disclosure requirements that mandate natural resource extraction companies to provide transparent and comprehensive information on their ESG performance.

Driving factor analysis and dynamic forecast of industrial carbon emissions in resource-dependent cities: a case study of Ordos, China.

Urban carbon emissions are one of the most important areas contributing to the growth of carbon emissions, and resource-dependent cities with natural resource extraction and processing as their leading industries tend to have higher carbon emissions. Ordos is the city with the highest coal production in China, and its economic development is dominated by coal, oil and gas, and other resource extraction and processing industries, with industrial activities making a large contribution to carbon emissions. At the same time, Ordos has undergone rapid industrialization in recent years, but still faces the problem of environmental pollution, epitomizing a typical resource-dependent city in China. Therefore, this paper takes Ordos as an example and uses the Generalized Divisa Index Method (GDIM) to study the drivers of industrial carbon emissions in Ordos from 2005-2020, a typical resource-dependent city in China, and further analyzes are conducted in relation to the three phases of development. Based on the key drivers, the Monte Carlo method is used to forecast industrial carbon emissions from 2021 to 2030. The results show that the most important factors driving the growth of industrial carbon emissions are the scale of industrial output and industrial energy consumption, while the intensity of industrial energy investment is the most important factor mitigating industrial carbon emissions, and that energy efficiency and carbon intensity of energy consumption can also mitigate carbon emissions after economic transformation. At the same time, investment is the factor with the greatest potential for optimization on the path to emissions reduction.

Smart(en)ing the Arctic city? The cases of Kiruna and Malmberget in Sweden

ABSTRACT In this article, we problematize the implementation of smart urban experiments in the resource-rich, Arctic periphery. Our case study is the so-called Norrbotten Technological Megasystem in Sweden, with a specific focus on the mining towns of Malmberget/Gällivare and Kiruna. Kiruna in particular is a well know case study as its urban centre is being relocated due to subsidence caused by underground mining. The new town centre is being developed as a testbed for smart urbanism. We argue that if we look at the nexus between resource extraction and urbanization in Kiruna and Malmberget, we find smart city thinking more aligned to the bottom line of the resource extraction industry rather than being an innovative project to make economic development compatible with broader climate and societal challenges. Methodologically, we use historic analysis and assemblage thinking to look at the territorialization and de-territorialization of resource-extraction in Norrbotten over the last 100 years.

“Tie a Yellow Ribbon for the Working Man”: Environmental Conflict and Working-Class Politics in Oregon Timber Country, 1970–Present

Abstract This article focusing on Oregon's timber industry contributes to recent efforts to chart the longer history of working-class conservativism, while also arguing that environmental change and conflict played a central role in shaping the political leanings and class identities of white, rural workers in resource extraction industries. It pays particular attention to Oregon's independent contracting and milling operations—small, often family-owned enterprises where the lines separating labor and capital were blurry at best and where bosses and employers alike viewed unions and working-class radicals with deep skepticism. Independent contractors became the dominant form of labor relations in Oregon's timber industry in the 1970s, largely because of changes to the forest wrought by decades of overharvests and the flight of large timber corporations. Workers unmoored by capital flight increasingly turned to independent contractors and thus began to believe that their economic futures depended on maintaining close ties with their employers. This sense grew stronger in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Oregon environmentalists began seeking new restrictions on logging to protect the habitat of the northern spotted owl — restrictions that threatened to further reduce timber-based employment and exacerbate the economic problems of rural, timber-dependent communities. Workers and employers joined together in more visible coalitions, held together by a shared populist outrage at the urban, liberal, and affluent elite who, in their view, were responsible for their economic precarity. This view remains evident in Oregon today, where a new movement that joins bosses and workers, Timber Unity, has coalesced to fight proposed legislation intended to address climate change.

Стратегирование экономического развития в ресурсных странах и регионах: теоретическое осмысление

The article is dedicated to the issues of economic development in countries and regions, one of the key competitive advantages of which is the natural resource potential. It is demonstrated, that the natural resource extraction industries have the potential to retain their place in the production structure even in the event of a transition to a new technological order. It is shown, that from the point of view of economic theory, the inefficient use of natural resources does not contribute to economic growth and development, and the channels of potential influence affect not only economic, but also political, social, institutional and other spheres. The main conclusions of the economic theory are interpreted from the point of view of the strategizing methodology of the foreign member of the RAS, professor, doctor of economic sciences V.L. Kvint. Proposals have been prepared for the strategic typology of resource regions for subsequent use both for the development of the theoretical provisions of the strategy, as a science, and for practical application and management decision-making.

The making and re-making of high modernist towns in the Circumpolar North

In this article we explore the fate of high modernist architecture and settlement planning in the North, through the lens of mining towns in Sweden and Quebec. After WW2, cities across the world were subject to a wave of restructuring in accordance with high modernist ideals. The circumpolar north became the subject of some of the most radical examples, often described as utopian. In the Swedish Arctic, a renowned architect Ralph Erskine played a leading role. He combined functionalist principles, with ideas of creating settlements protecting inhabitants from harsh Arctic conditions, in harmony with the environment. Erskine's ideas were implemented to a different extent in Kiruna and Svappavaara in north Sweden in the 1960's and in Fermont, Quebec, in the early 1970's. Our aim is to understand the challenges of creating industrial settlements in the Arctic, with the capacity to attract employees that are needed for resource extraction and other industries. While Erskine's architecture in Svappavaara and Kiruna will be demolished, the wall shaped town in Fermont is still intact and expanding. By comparing and highlighting differences, we call attention to the threat of demolition of legacies of an era that has yet to be defined as cultural heritage.

The State of Jefferson: Beyond Myth and Mindset, Toward Enhanced Conceptualization of a Region

The State of Jefferson, a ruggedly beautiful region consisting of swaths of southern Oregon and northern California, is often described as “mythical” or a “state of mind.” Introducing this issue of HJSR, this article lays out the basic regional features of Jefferson—its topography, rurality, traditional reliance on resource-extractive industries, and associations with secessionism—and poses the question: How might we conceptualize the Jefferson as more than just “mythical” or a “state of mind”? In discussing how the region as an object of study has been approached by geographers, the author highlights the importance of enhancing the manner in which Jefferson is narrated. Toward that end, two geographic metaphors are offered to frame understandings and discussions of Jefferson.

Masculinity in Folklore: The Enduring Symbolism of the Canadian Lumberjack

The nineteenth-century logging industry in North America produced working conditions that gave birth to many folk tales and folk heroes that have held firm, keeping the lumberjack a topic of popular culture that has endured for over a century. Through examining a historical painting and sketch inspired by the popular French-Canadian folktale La Chasse Galerie, present-day people can better understand the different historical influences, such as religion and ethnicity, that helped create folklore and ideas of masculinity within the timber trade in the Ottawa Valley. In addition, the masculinity that logging folk heroes and folk tales embody can help illustrate trends in modern resource extraction industries.

Estimation of Initial Stock in Pollution Control Problem

A two-player differential game of pollution control with uncertain initial disturbance stock is considered. In pace with contemporary policy in the resource extraction industry, we initiate our research based on a resource extraction differential model with a rehabilitation process in which the firms are required to compensate the local to rehabilitate the polluted and dilapidated areas. Given the reality that the initial pollution stock plays a critical role in the production, and we cannot rigorously determine its actual value, a simulation of the estimation of the initial stock is alternatively investigated through the Pontryagin maximum principle (PMP). The later analytical results by normalized value of information (NVI) indicate the precious influence brought to the final payoff under various estimations of the initial stock both in the cooperative and non-cooperative cases. With such guidance, the player is capable of making a much more judicious decision when it comes to the determination of the initial stock. Furthermore, a numerical example is additionally presented for better comprehension.

Ambiguous Matter

This paper explores mine waste that originates from resource extraction by specifically focusing on waste rock, tailings, dust and material culture from the resource extraction industry. By drawing on examples from fieldwork, archives, local media commentary and limited interviews from two iron-mining regions in Arctic Norway and sub-Arctic Canada, this paper follows mine waste as it routinely transgresses attempts to be managed. Mine waste spills out of its prescribed sinks, it oscillates between being considered waste to heritage to potentially valuable commodity, and it blurs the boundaries between spaces dedicated for mining and for non-mining. In following these trends, the paper calls for attentiveness to the ambiguous materiality of mine waste and how heterogeneity and excess circumscribe attempts at easy characterisation and management of the ubiquitous wastes that come to dominate mining regions. As such, archaeological approaches to studying mine waste can illustrate how mine waste becomes the default, lived-with condition of life in regions dominated by ongoing mining operations.

Complex orebodies and future global metal supply: An introduction

This special issue aims to create a space for rethinking current approaches to “complex orebodies”. Our introductory paper surveys recent developments in the field and identifies a range of challenges that are affecting our collective ability to engage the complex systems associated with future global metal supply. Interdisciplinary mining research remains in its infancy, with single-discipline, technical studies continuing to dominate. Social and environmental factors that lie “beyond the fence” are too often over-simplified and overlooked in resource characterisation and extractive industries. In this special issue, we profile developments in the field and engage the challenges of working in inter-disciplinary, boundary-spanning research in mining. Our paper introduces the special issue, and invites contributing authors to critically engage the conditions and prospects that lie ahead.

Climate Extractivism: Avoiding The Pitfalls Of Extraction-Based Decarbonization

Mainstream solutions to the climate crisis are driven by the combined imperative for economic growth. The path to solving the climate crisis is through major shifts in power relations across borders, class, gender, race, and human/non-human divides. The current sense of the climate crisis is stronger than it has ever been with people having personal experiences with their lives being impacted by climate change. Recently increased development in ecological modernist ideology has the resource extractive industries deploying discourses of climate progress to justify new rounds and forms of extractions like seabed mining. Fossil fuel producers have long denied climate concerns. Fossil fuel companies are finding that lowering their carbon fossil fuel producers is becoming necessary for financing. Reducing emissions may achieve some climate-related goals, but this will not lead to an environmentally sustainable outcome. Learning from past mistakes of extractivism and reforming is not only the responsibility of countries but also of all parties involved.

Investigating networks of corporate influence on government decision-making: The case of Australia’s climate change and energy policies

This paper argues that the ability of dominant corporations in the fossil fuel and other polluting industries to shape government policy on climate change and energy issues is directly related to their financial interests in particular countries, and emblematic of the crippling effect which they have exercised on the ability of nation states to decarbonise. Using Australia as an exemplar of the many favourable policy outcomes which powerful corporate interests have secured from successive governments in relation to climate and energy policy, it seeks to demonstrate that covert networks of political influence have played a major role in the decisions made and actions implemented in both areas of policymaking over the last fifteen years. Through detailed empirical analysis of a database of current and former senior politicians, political staffers and bureaucrats with employment links to the fossil fuel and resource extraction industries, it argues that these industries have constructed a covert network of lobbyists and revolving door appointments which has ensured that industry interests continue to dominate Australia’s energy policy, and that its emissions from fossil fuel use continue to rise. Covert corporate influence in Australia’s energy and resource sectors provides an additional layer of explanation for the persistence of structural biases in its financing, policy and regulatory regimes to those accounts which draw on different forms of discourse and policy analysis.

Trust, mistrust and distrust as blind spots of Social Licence to Operate: illustration via three forerunner countries in nuclear waste management

The notion of social licence to operate (SLO) has become a widely applied concept for companies in mining and resource extraction industries to manage their social and community relations, in the face of local criticism and opposition. SLO literature and practice have highlighted earning the trust of the local community as a key requirement for an SLO. This article addresses three weaknesses in how the current SLO literature addresses trust. The arguments are illustrated via examples from nuclear waste management in Finland, France and Sweden – three forerunners in implementing high-level nuclear waste repository projects. Nuclear waste management constitutes a relevant case for analysis, as an industry that faces significant risk-related challenges of local acceptance, ethics, economics, and democratic debate. Focussing on the oft-used SLO framework of Boutilier and Thomson, with its emphasis on interactional and institutionalised trust between the company and the local community, we address three gaps in the SLO literature: 1) insufficient conceptualisation of trust, in particular the dynamics between different dimensions of trust, mistrust and distrust; 2) lack of attention to the potential virtues of mistrust and distrust; and 3) the downsides of taking the institutionalisation of trust as the ultimate criterion of a strong SLO, especially in contexts entailing significant asymmetries of power. The article concludes by suggesting ways of alleviating the identified weaknesses, via greater recognition of the multidimensionality of trust, mistrust and distrust, the virtues of mistrustful civic vigilance, and greater attention to trust dimensions that lie beyond the community-company relations.