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In 2022, members of the environmental organization Fundación Tantí undertook a journey across Chile’s northern Antofagasta region, traveling east to west, from the salt flats to the coast, to assess the lesser-seen impacts of lithium mining. In just a few years, the landscape had changed radically. Lithium and copper mega-mining operations were joined by solar and wind projects, while the Cerro Dominador thermosolar megaproject—visible for miles from the highway—had just come online. On the coast, lithium carbonate plants built atop a salt flat in a heavily industrialized zone were just a prelude to what awaited in the Bay of Mejillones. There, we found thermoelectric plants roaring and wind turbine components piled up at the Port of Angamos, making it clear that the local impacts of the so-called electricity transition were more complex than we had previously understood.
By 2024, we decided to expand the geographic scope of our work and explore the connections between lithium and copper mining—the primary threats to Indigenous communities and territories in the Andes—and the previously diffuse reality of the coast. Our first visit was to the coastal town of Taltal to meet with members of the Chango pueblo. During a workshop-style meeting with community members, we sensed an atmosphere of urgency and indignation. One by one, the women leaders took turns telling us about the many energy projects arriving in the region, including green hydrogen, which we noted with growing concern. They corrected one another on the locations, sizes, and timelines of the projects expected to arrive on their shores. At the end, one of the women made an observation that shaped the course of our work: the arrival of the hydrogen industry, she said, will turn Antofagasta into a vast “sacrifice zone.”
The expansive and arid Antofagasta region has been a site of large-scale mining for nearly two centuries.
The expansive and arid Antofagasta region has been a site of large-scale mining for nearly two centuries. In recent decades, the region has hosted fossil fuel generation initially intended to supply mega-copper mining operations. From saltpeter to copper and, more recently, lithium, the Atacama Desert is a territory marked by deep socio-environmental wounds. Mining tailings, depleted and poisoned watersheds, air pollution, and vanishing biodiversity have eroded unique ways of life. Communities in the Andean Puna, who have practiced high-altitude agropastoralism for millennia, have seen their wetlands and grasslands dry up as mining expands systematically. Coastal communities, meanwhile, have seen their best fishing grounds transformed into industrial hubs and ports for the flow of minerals and other goods to international markets. These territories, long described as sacrifice zones due to their concentration of coal-related industrial activities, now face the arrival of new infrastructure associated with “green” mining and energy: desalination plants, lithium carbonate facilities, and hydrogen and energy projects. All of this unfolds without any effective mechanisms for public participation or environmental protection.
In these same territories, the “energy transition” is being discussed as a new opportunity to promote the well-being of its inhabitants. Yet this framing—which could be seen as a welcome step toward decarbonization—is not without risks and threats. Here, we analyze how two elements, lithium and hydrogen, are becoming central to green capitalism in Chile, alongside other commodities like so-called “green copper.” Focusing on two case studies in the Antofagasta region, we show why these extractive industries represent false solutions and new forms of greenwashing historical extractivism. We link these dynamics to the democratic deficit in Chile’s environmental and territorial planning institutions, concluding with a reflection on green sacrifice as a structural feature of green capitalism itself.
The Foundations of a Corporate Energy Transition
From offices far removed from the social and environmental reality of northern Chile, two national policies have been promoted under the banners of energy transition and investment incentives in the context of the climate crisis and post-pandemic recovery. In 2023, progressive President Gabriel Boric launched the National Lithium Strategy (ENL), focused on increasing state involvement in lithium exploitation and revenue capture through public-private partnerships and technological development for the implementation of less ecologically harmful extraction methods. The government also renewed its promise to promote value-added production within Chile, although no concrete progress has been made on that front. Regarding socio-environmental issues, the strategy included the participation of Indigenous communities affected by future lithium operations in accordance with International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169, guaranteeing their right to free, prior, and informed consultation as well as a share in the economic benefits of mining. Finally, progress was made on the creation of a Protected Salt Flats Network, which seeks to protect 30 percent of these fragile and unique ecosystems, fundamental to high Andean biodiversity and the region’s hydrological balance. This initiative also includes processes for citizen and Indigenous consultation.
In practice, Indigenous peoples were not given binding participation in determining the methods of protection for Andean salt flats and wetlands. Furthermore, the consultations carried out by the Ministry of Mining under the framework of Special Lithium Operation Contracts (CEOL) were based on a list of salt flats prioritized by the state according to strictly economic criteria. Communities can only comment on specific aspects of the contracts, such as benefit sharing, and are not guaranteed the right to reject lithium mining in their territories. Regarding decisions to protect or exploit Chile’s salt flats, both communities and specialists argue that the current government has prioritized economic interests over scientific, environmental, or territorial criteria. While the proposal for a network of protected salt flats might seem like a step forward in their defense, this must be validated through the effective participation of Indigenous communities and independent experts committed to Indigenous self-determination and the protection of nature.
Another pillar of Chile’s energy transition agenda is industrial hydrogen, branded ‘green’ or ‘renewable’ and produced through the process of water electrolysis with electricity powered by non-conventional renewable energy sources.
Another pillar of Chile’s energy transition agenda is industrial hydrogen, branded “green” or “renewable” and produced through the process of water electrolysis with electricity powered by non-conventional renewable energy sources (NCRE). This policy was first promoted under former president Sebastián Piñera (2018-2022), prior to Boric’s administration. In 2020, the government announced the National Green Hydrogen Strategy, based on a technical study by McKinsey & Co. that aimed to position Chile among the top three hydrogen exporters worldwide. The plan identified two regions, Magallanes in the south and Antofagasta in the north, as priorities for developing the infrastructure for this industry. Between 2023 and 2024, the Boric administration reinforced this strategy with the Green Hydrogen Action Plan, which focused on citizen participation. However, as with the National Lithium Strategy, the process lacks truly representative and binding mechanisms for engagement, especially in relation to potentially affected Indigenous communities.
Both industries, lithium and hydrogen, have been framed within national discourses of “green” transformation and industrialization. Hydrogen has been promoted as the “fuel of the future” by ministers, members of parliament, and Boric himself, and posed as a solution to unemployment following the closure of coal plants in port towns like Tocopilla and Mejillones. At the same time, lithium has been marketed as a low-emission form of mining and a historic opportunity to develop lithium-related value chains and technologies in Chile. Yet these narratives of eco-technological optimism contrast with a territorial reality marked by growing socio-environmental problems.
The drive for these industries aligns with the European Union’s (EU) decarbonization policies, which in 2020 set the target of producing 10 million tons of renewable hydrogen and importing another 10 million tons by 2030. This focus on hydrogen produced outside Europe’s borders adds to the EU’s long-standing demand for Chilean lithium and was incorporated into the updated EU-Chile agreement signed during the EU-CELAC Summit in 2023. According to the European Parliament, the agreement seeks to “ensure better access to clean raw materials and fuels such as lithium, copper, and hydrogen.” The Global Gateway initiative was also introduced with the European Investment Bank as a key partner in promoting projects, with a special emphasis on hydrogen.
European international cooperation agencies, such as the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), have played a central role in shaping the discourse around copper, lithium, and hydrogen as urgent and unmissable opportunities that will benefit both producers and consumers. This form of soft power is reflected in promotional events, feasibility studies, and lobbying efforts that seek to influence mining and energy policy in Chile and other Andean nations. Recent examples include the August 2023 conference on “The Lithium Triangle and the Geopolitics of Critical Minerals,” and the July 2024 forum “Navigating the Just Energy Transition: Green Hydrogen as a Catalyst for Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean,” co-organized with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
This international framework legitimizes the lithium and hydrogen industries through the narrative of climate emergency, presenting them as a moral imperative for countries like Chile and territories like the Atacama Desert. The concept of “responsible mining,” based on non-binding private standards, further reinforces this image. In response to the crisis of legitimacy and lack of public participation, actors like the German auto industry and GIZ have promoted “multi-stakeholder” participation platforms that present themselves as intermediaries between communities and industry—despite lacking recognition from Indigenous organizations and denying the water footprint of lithium mining caused by brine evaporation. Meanwhile, Chile’s national hydrogen industry association calls itself “a driver of zero-emissions development for Chile and the world,” even before its projects have undergone environmental evaluation.
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This publication was produced with support from the Tantí Foundation and the 11th Hour Project.
Gabriela Cabaña is a sociologist with a diploma in social ecology and political ecology, an MSc in social anthropology, and a PhD in anthropology. She was a researcher at the Tantí Foundation and is currently a project coordinator in the area of advocacy and environmental democracy for Ciudadanía Inteligente. She is also a member of the Pacto Ecosocial and Intercultural del Sur.
Ramón Balcázar holds a diploma in social research, an MSc in International Studies, and is pursuing a PhD in Rural Development. He is the founder and executive director of the Tantí Foundation, and a member of the Plurinational Observatory of Andean Salt Flats and the Thematic Social Forum on Mining and Extractivism.