Can we mine ourselves out of the climate crisis? Lessons from resisting lithium mining in Serbia
Advertisement
The event is free to attend. Please sign up in advance here: https://cape.ku.dk/eng/calendar/2026/can-we-mine-ourselves-out-of-the-climate-crisis-lessons-from-resisting-lithium-mining-in-serbia/
A talk with Nina Djukanović Hons, Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Belgrade.
Critical raw materials (CRMs), including lithium, have been widely understood as essential elements for the green transition and tackling the climate crisis, especially due to their use in technologies ranging from electric vehicles to solar panels and battery storage. The EU's Critical Raw Materials Act, which entered into force in 2024, is a key piece of legislation with the purpose of decreasing the EU's material dependence on countries such as China through encouraging mining of CRMs in the EU and its partner countries. Yet the potentially devastating impact on the environment has meant that numerous mining projects have been met with local resistance.
One such case is in Serbia, where Europe's biggest lithium mining project led by the mining corporation Rio Tinto was meant to be constructed. The Jadar Project, located in the western part of the country, has led to mass protests which have attracted hundreds of thousands of people over the years, with the project being once already cancelled and now facing an uncertain future. The resistance against lithium mining in Serbia has thus marked a critical point of contestation of the dominant climate strategies that are fundamentally reliant on continuous extractivism and never-ending economic growth.
This talk will address the tensions within the climate policies which are based on mining and extractivism, as well as the growing use of CRMs in AI development and militarisation. It will also outline alternative green strategies that are rooted in the ideas of justice and sufficiency rather than in the creation of new sacrifice zones in Europe's rural areas.
The talk will be followed by a small reception with light refreshments.
Bio:
Nina Djukanović Hons is a researcher examining the relationship between extractivism, environmental justice, and contested understandings of the energy transition. She is a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Belgrade. She holds a PhD from the University of Oxford, during which she conducted an ethnographic investigation of resistance to lithium mining in Serbia. She also acts as a research fellow at the Association for International Affairs (AMO), a Prague-based think-tank, where she focuses on the geopolitics of the critical raw materials. She is involved in several international and regional activist networks including an informal collective the Group on Green Extractivism in the Balkans (GGEB).
A talk with Nina Djukanović Hons, Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Belgrade.
Critical raw materials (CRMs), including lithium, have been widely understood as essential elements for the green transition and tackling the climate crisis, especially due to their use in technologies ranging from electric vehicles to solar panels and battery storage. The EU's Critical Raw Materials Act, which entered into force in 2024, is a key piece of legislation with the purpose of decreasing the EU's material dependence on countries such as China through encouraging mining of CRMs in the EU and its partner countries. Yet the potentially devastating impact on the environment has meant that numerous mining projects have been met with local resistance.
One such case is in Serbia, where Europe's biggest lithium mining project led by the mining corporation Rio Tinto was meant to be constructed. The Jadar Project, located in the western part of the country, has led to mass protests which have attracted hundreds of thousands of people over the years, with the project being once already cancelled and now facing an uncertain future. The resistance against lithium mining in Serbia has thus marked a critical point of contestation of the dominant climate strategies that are fundamentally reliant on continuous extractivism and never-ending economic growth.
This talk will address the tensions within the climate policies which are based on mining and extractivism, as well as the growing use of CRMs in AI development and militarisation. It will also outline alternative green strategies that are rooted in the ideas of justice and sufficiency rather than in the creation of new sacrifice zones in Europe's rural areas.
The talk will be followed by a small reception with light refreshments.
Bio:
Nina Djukanović Hons is a researcher examining the relationship between extractivism, environmental justice, and contested understandings of the energy transition. She is a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Belgrade. She holds a PhD from the University of Oxford, during which she conducted an ethnographic investigation of resistance to lithium mining in Serbia. She also acts as a research fellow at the Association for International Affairs (AMO), a Prague-based think-tank, where she focuses on the geopolitics of the critical raw materials. She is involved in several international and regional activist networks including an informal collective the Group on Green Extractivism in the Balkans (GGEB).
Advertisement
Where is it happening?
Læderstræde 20, 1201 Copenhagen, Denmark, Læderstræde 20, 1201 København K, Danmark, Copenhagen , Denmark
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.
Host or PublisherCenter for Applied Ecological Thinking
