Gina: What does she want? – episode 7
At 13 years old, a young Gina Rinehart read a book that would help shape her worldview – Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, which is having a moment around the world. The novel's capitalist underpinnings promote the idea that people should strive to be their best industrial selves.
In this episode, we explore how these values are playing out in Rinehart's life today, including her proposal to build a coalmine in Canada's Rocky Mountains. And we hear how author and environmental campaigner Tim Winton views her efforts to prevent an overhaul of Australia's environmental laws
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The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Death, violence and endless delay: Inside Africa's most troubled energy project
Campaigners have demanded the UK government pull its funding for a natural gas mega project in Mozambique – alleging that it breaches Britain's human rights and environmental obligations. The project in question is a $20 billion (£15bn) liquified natural gas (LNG) development located in the Cabo Delgado region of Mozambique. The project, called Mozambique LNG, has been halted since 2021 after violence from an Isis-backed group led to 183 contractors being trapped in a hotel for two days, with 10 people killed when apparently trying to escape, including British national Philip Mawer. In all, the ongoing insurgency in the area has resulted in an estimated 6,000 deaths since the conflict began in 2017, with some 600,000 people displaced. In a letter seen by The Independent, campaign group Oil Change International (OCI) argues that the violence and other issues over the protection of the project makes a potential $1.15bn investment by UK Export Finance, a department of the UK government untenable. Continuing to finance the project is also not compatible with environmental commitments made in 2021 to no longer finance fossil fuels abroad, OCI argues. A tale of violence, delay and legal action was never meant to be the story of Mozambique's foray into natural gas, after some 180 trillion cubic feet of gas was discovered off the country's coast in 2010. In 2016, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected 34 per cent GDP growth for Mozambique by 2021. However, actual economic growth was around 2.5 per cent. TotalEnergies, the French energy firm, is currently in the process of trying to re-start the project by the middle of this year. 'The security situation has improved," CEO Patrick Pouyanne told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Gas conference earlier this month. Pouyanne's ambitions received a big boost in March when the US Export-Import Bank re-approved financial support worth $4.7bn for the project, boosting TotalEnergies' hopes of restarting the project. But the future of Mozambique LNG remains up in the air, with the British export credit agency still considering whether to recommit to its $1.15bn pledge – having joining with 33 countries, including the US, to sign a pledge to end public finance for fossil fuel projects abroad while hosting the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021. According to OCI campaigner Adam McGibbon, if the UK pulls out of the deal then the entire financial arrangement is expected to collapse. 'We know of at least one major bank involved in the deal that has said they will also pull out if the UK does,' he says. The legal letter sent by OCI argues that the funding of the LNG project in Mozambique goes against the UK's obligations under international law to promote human rights in business both domestically and abroad. The letter highlights the UN's Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which state that companies and nations must ensure that human rights are respected in relation to business operations. A UK Export Finance spokesperson said: 'UK Export Finance is currently in talks with project sponsors and other lenders regarding the latest status of the LNG production project in Mozambique. 'We take reports of alleged human rights infringement extremely seriously and are looking further into the matters.' 'The Qatar of Africa' Observers at the time the gas was discovered off the coast of Mozambique suggested that the country – one of the world's poorest – could transform into the 'Qatar of Africa'. A number of massive projects aiming to ship the gas around the world in the form of LNG were soon proposed. TotalEnergies' Mozambique LNG project stands out for its sheer size, with the $20bn in financing a figure roughly the same size as Mozambique's entire GDP. The 65 trillion cubic feet of gas it was expected to deliver is the equivalent of six years of current EU gas demand. But in March 2021, the 'force majeure' declaration was made, which enables parties to renege on an agreement due to unforeseen external circumstances. It came after Islamist insurgents captured swathes of territory in the Cabo Delgado region, and at least 1,400 people were left killed or missing presumed dead. Earlier this year French authorities began investigating TotalEnergies over potential corporate manslaughter, after survivors and relatives of victims of the event accused the energy giant of failing to protect its workers. In a statement shared with The Independent, a spokesperson for TotalEnergies said that they will ' cooperate with this investigation', but that 'the company categorically rejects' the accusations. 'Mozambique LNG's teams provided emergency assistance and mobilised their resources to evacuate more than 2,500 people (civilians, employees, contractors, and subcontractors) from the site where the Mozambique LNG project is located at the time of the attacks,' the spokesperson said. But some say the need to resettle people so that the land can used for the project has aided recruitment for the insurgents. 'The local population is being deprived of jobs, in a scenario where pressure on land is increasing, where people are losing access to land, losing access to natural resources,' wrote local analyst Joao Feijo earlier this year. 'The discontent that is created here is very great and this kind of discontent is capitalised on by these violent groups. Many individuals joined this group because they had no other alternative,' he added. Signs of discontent can be found in villagers claiming that they have not been sufficiently compensated for giving up land that most rely on for subsistence farming, according to evidence collected by local NGO Justica Ambiental, after Mozambique LNG was given rights to 6,625 hectares of land to build its liquefaction terminal. 'We agreed that the company would take our areas, but when they took our areas – the forests and fields – and they didn't want to pay us, they denied it,' said Neto Agostino Paulo resident of Macala Village, in footage captured by Justica Ambiental in summer 2024. Fellow Macala villager Adija Momade Sumail Nkabwi said: 'The company came here to lie to us that they were going to compensate us for our property that they had occupied, leaving us with false expectations'. The spokesperson for TotalEnergies told The Independent that prior to the force majeure announcement, 89 per cent of compensation payments had been paid within six months of the signing of compensation agreements, and 66 per cent were paid within 90 days. 'The Force Majeure situation has prevented the full implementation of the relocation and compensation process and has slowed down the exercise,' they said. 'Drill baby, drill' For OCI's Adam McGibbon, the violence and displacement witnessed in Cabo Delgado is a 'classic example of the resource curse': The phenomenon where resource-rich countries with abundant natural resources ironically end up with a multitude of problems. Nigeria and Angola – both oil-rich countries plagued by corruption and inequality – are oft-cited examples of countries to have suffered this fate in Africa. At the same time, it has also been said that given the low living standards of countries like Mozambique, any opportunity to bring in billions of dollars of foreign investment is a good thing. Some, like former Irish President Mary Robinson, have argued that African nations should be allowed to extract natural gas to develop. But there are growing concerns that the economic benefits originally conceived in Mozambique LNG might not ever materialise, even if the project goes ahead as planned. For all the talk of ' Drill baby, drill ' coming from Donald Trump in the White House right now, the prospects of a major new LNG production terminal are much weaker than in 2020. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and subsequently shut off pipeline gas flows to Europe, planned new LNG facilities in the US and Qatar have driven up projections of global LNG capacity. An increase of nearly 50 per cent is currently on the horizon, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). This ' LNG glut ', as the IEA describes it, is exacerbated by renewables continually beating targets in Europe and Asia, as well as a global push for 'energy security' that did not exist in 2020, and which is making governments less inclined to rely on expensive liquefied gas imports for energy. 'If and when TotalEnergies' Mozambique LNG project gets off the ground, it will be adding further supply into a market characterised by oversupply and lacklustre demand,' says Simon Nicholas, from IEEFA, a think tank. 'This can hardly be a surprise: There is a long history in Sub-Saharan Africa of fossil fuel projects doing nothing to boost development in the host country.' If global gas markets are oversupplied, there is a risk that Mozambique LNG will become a 'stranded asset', which will plummet in value – or even become a liability for Mozambique. Even a 'moderate-paced transition' away from fossil fuels globally would lead to Mozambique seeing gas revenues of just 20 per cent of what they would be in a slow-paced transition, a report from the think tank Carbon Tracker has found. The authors described countries looking to exploit oil and gas assets for the first time as making a 'significant gamble'. 'Huge economic costs' TotalEnergies has also structured its LNG deals in a way that activists have warned is disadvantageous to Mozambique, with revenues Mozambique set to come in the mid-2030s and 2040s, think tank IISD has said. This means that if the project does not see out its lifespan, TotalEnergies and other partners will have seen an outsize share of profits so far, with Mozambique losing out. Mozambique also faces 'substantial economic risks' related to investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS), a separate report from Columbia University found last year. ISDS are lawsuits where foreign investors sue countries where they have invested if they believe the government has violated the terms of the agreement. Mozambique's international investment agreements allow foreign investors to bypass the national judicial system in such disputes, the report found, while 'stabilisation clauses' protect investments from unexpected regulatory changes or new fiscal rules, potentially preventing Mozambique enacting new legislation to transition away from fossil fuels. 'What they have basically done is said Mozambique cannot invest in climate action without paying huge economic costs,' says Daniel Ribeiro, a Mozambican activist with Justica Ambiental. Such an arrangement is likely to 'only amplify social tensions in Cabo Delgado,' if little money is seen to reach local people while a Western company makes large profits, warns Ribeiro. Given the insurgency, delays, and economic concerns, it might seem the simplest thing for Mozambique to do would be to try and pull out of the deal. However, the country has racked up government debts since gas was discovered, using expected future gas revenues as collateral for borrowing. But expectations have not matched reality. The year 2016 also saw a corruption scandal rock the country after it was found that members of the Mozambican Government had secretly taken out loans for themselves from London-based banks, using assurances of future LNG gas revenues to do so. A 2023 report from Debt Justice found that the Mozambican government has been paying back some of those loans. Mozambique's external national debt more than doubled between 2010 and 2018, according to CEICC data, while Friends of the Earth has warned that potential corruption arising from the 'mere promises of LNG development' may have already cost the country more than any actual profit the project could generate for the country over its lifetime. For Ribeiro, who lives in the Mozambican capital of Maputo, the priority for the country should be investing in renewables and climate change adaptation. 'My main message is that the cost of climate change is going to be far greater than any profits from Mozambique LNG, and that should be the priority,' he says. The country is considered one of the most climate-vulnerable on the continent, exposed to extreme weather concerns including cyclones, droughts and floods. Cyclone Kenneth, which hit Cabo Delgado in 2019, caused damage estimated at $300m. But the Trump administration has a different idea about what is good for the country. Weeks before confirming its $4.7bn loan for Mozambique LNG, the US government shut down the USAID-backed Power Africa programme's operations in the country – with an emphasis on renewable energy – which has been leading efforts to boost energy access, in a country where only 40 per cent of the country's population has access to electricity. 'Cycle of death' The push to resume the Mozambique LNG project also comes despite the fact that the Islamist insurgency very much remains a threat. While insurgents no longer control full towns and villages, they have become more agile, and have stepped up the number of road blocks in recent weeks, according to local media. 'There are still believed to be several insurgency units of hundred or so people, and they still have the ability to make attacks and destabilise the area,' says Ribeiro. 'And every time they suffer losses, they continue to be able to recruit. Why? Because we are still not dealing with the economic and social drivers of the problem,' he adds. The EU is currently funding Rwandan troops to help protect the region - but this arrangement is also under threat due to accusations Rwanda has been supporting rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as allegations that the Mozambican government is using units trained by the EU for protest suppression. For Marisa Lourenço, an independent risk analyst in Southern Africa, the threat of violence is 'definitely still there' in Cabo Delgado. She believes that while TotalEnergies will be able to securely lock down its site on the coast, it remains unclear if doing so is worth the money. 'TotalEnergies can secure the site. But is the infrastructure cost worth it? Will it recoup its sunken costs? Probably not. TotalEnergies rushed into taking on this project, and I think it regrets it,' she believe. For Mozambique, meanwhile, it remains clear for Ribeiro that the best option is for the country to pull out of the project. 'Pulling out will cause a whole host of problems in the short term, but it will help us emerge from this cycle of death,' he says. So long as the project continues, the Western world can turn a blind eye to what is happening in Mozambique, by imagining that it is financially supporting the country, believes Ribeiro. But if the project fails, then the country can focus on other development pathways that actually benefit the people. 'It's like a chronic condition that keeps flaring up, for which there is no cure' he says. 'Sometimes you just need to take the bullet.'
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
China has a stranglehold on the world's rare-earths supply chain. Can Australia break it?
Weeks after China retaliated against Donald Trump's tariffs by suspending exports of a range of rare-earth elements and related high-powered magnets, Ford was forced to pause a production line in Chicago. Days later, executives from other major carmakers, including General Motors and Toyota, told the White House their suppliers faced an impending shortage of necessary materials that could shut assembly lines. The speed of the fallout shows just how reliant the world has become on China's mineral supply chain and its production of rare-earth magnets , used in everything from wind turbines and medical devices to combustion and electric motors, and ballistic missile guidance systems. The Albanese government believes it can help break China's dominance, but experts say the challenge is enormous. Prof John Mavrogenes, from the Australian National University's research school of earth sciences, says the government needs to dramatically boost its investment in skills, education and technology if it wants to develop the domestic capability to manufacture rare-earth products, namely magnets. 'The question over who can deal with the processing and the making of magnets is a really big one, and quite hard to get your head around because we've let China just take that business over,' says Mavrogenes. 'The question is capability. Who's ready to ramp up if we need to? One country that I know isn't ready is Australia. 'We need so many metallurgists and chemical engineers, and we need them tomorrow. We probably need 10, 20, 50 times more than we're producing.' China is a large producer of rare earths and has near-complete control over the refining processes needed to make the minerals useful. It produces about 90% of rare-earth magnets, completing its control of the supply chain. It has become a very efficient, cost-effective provider of rare-earth materials, although given some of the historical environmental damage caused by their extraction and processing, it has paid a price. Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Economies around the world have benefited from China's rare earths industry. The system seemed to work, until it didn't. In 2010, China starved Japan's hi-tech manufacturing industries by halting shipments of rare earths for about two months, after a dispute over a detained Chinese fishing trawler captain. In late 2023, China formalised a ban on the export of rare-earth separation technologies. Two months ago, China placed export restrictions on seven strategically chosen rare earths and the end product, magnets. While the recent curbs were sparked by Trump's tariffs, Beijing applied the export controls to all countries. It has implemented a new export permit system, choking the world of supply. Rare-earth magnets need a lot of two light rare-earth elements, neodymium and praseodymium, which are not subject to China's export curbs. But more powerful, heat-resistant magnets used in automotive and defence industries tend to require dysprosium or terbium, which are called heavy rare earths because of their atomic weights. Dysprosium and terbium are on China's list of suspended rare earths, as is samarium, which is also used in hi-tech applications. Until recently, the desire to develop a rare earths sector has been pitched by governments as a means to fuel the transition to clean energy technology and electric vehicles. Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion But now, it's also taken on the pressing aim of shoring up supplies of materials required for national interests, including defence. Australia, rich in resources, is seen as a natural competitor to China that could break into its rare-earths supply chain. The Albanese government has openly discussed this desire for well over two years, and officials have crisscrossed the country, from Dubbo in New South Wales to Western Australia and Northern Territory, offering grants, funding and other assistance in order to develop bona fide domestic processing capabilities. Notably, the government has backed the development of Iluka's Eneabba project in WA, which is designed to come online in 2027 and produce several rare-earth oxides, including dysprosium and terbium. Iluka's chief executive, Tom O'Leary, told shareholders last month the 'current industry is unsustainable, owing to China's monopoly position and approach'. 'It is a fact that rare earths are among very few metals where China has demonstrated a preparedness to withhold supply to achieve political or strategic objectives,' O'Leary said. Another Australian company, Lynas, is a step ahead, given it has some rare-earths processing capabilities out of Kalgoorlie. It relies on further refining at its factory in Malaysia, which recently became the first to separate heavy rare-earth elements, primarily dysprosium and terbium, outside China. The Labor government has also proposed setting up a strategic stockpile of critical minerals. While the details of this plan are scant, such a stockpile, by building up supplies, could provide pricing certainty for projects affected by the current monopoly market. The government's various funding announcements show that Australia is focusing on the initial extraction and refining of rare earths, but not on the process of turning that material into metals and, in turn, manufacturing magnets. There are mixed views on whether that is the right approach, given the strategy falls short of developing an end-to-end rare-earths supply chain in Australia, independent of China, as some had hoped for. There has also been limited discussion of the potential for magnet recycling in Australia. Rowena Smith, the chief executive of Australian Strategic Materials, says it is more realistic for Australia to partner with overseas magnet producers outside China than to quickly develop capabilities to produce magnets. 'The opportunity for Australia is to play to our strengths upstream and integrate with allied partners into those emerging magnet manufacturers,' says Smith. 'It would be ambitious to get this supply chain up rapidly in Australia, because you need every piece of the supply chain to come online simultaneously.'
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
As UN climate talks loom, Brazil's Amazon forest loses in May an area larger than NYC
Brazil's environmental goals suffered a major setback in May as deforestation in the Amazon surged 92% compared to the same month last year, according to official monitoring data released Friday. Forest loss reached 960 square kilometers (371 square miles) during the period, an area slightly larger than New York City. It was the second-highest total for May since the current monitoring system was implemented in 2016. The increase risks reversing the year-over-year decline in forest clearance since 2023, when Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began his third term. During his campaign, the leftist leader had pledged to end deforestation by 2030. Brazil's monitoring system tracks deforestation from Aug. 1 to July 30. Over the past 10 months, deforestation has risen 9.7% compared to the same period a year earlier. The 2025 deforestation rate, tracked by the National Institute for Space Research, is expected to be announced just before the U.N. climate talks, scheduled for November in the Amazonian city of Belém. Brazil is one of the world's top 10 emitters of greenhouse gases, contributing about 3% of global emissions, according to the nonprofit Climate Watch. Almost half of those emissions come from deforestation, making efforts to halt it critical to meeting Brazil's commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement. The Amazon, an area almost twice the size of India, contains the world's largest rainforest, about two-thirds of it within Brazil. It stores vast amounts of carbon dioxide, holds about 20% of the world's freshwater and is home to hundreds of Indigenous tribes, some living in isolation, and 16,000 known tree species. ____ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
