Presentation short abstract

Aluminium plays a dual role in environmental discourse: very damaging environmentally, but deemed essential for the energy transition. At COP 30 in Belém, industry narratives, community resistance, and workers’ demands revealed the tensions intrinsic to the metal’s expanding production.

Presentation long abstract

Aluminium production accounts for 2–3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet the metal is simultaneously classified as a “critical mineral” for the energy transition. This dual status places the sector in front of a paradox, as it is pressured to drastically reduce its socio-environmental impacts while expanding production by roughly 150%.

This contribution examines global aluminium production networks through ecological, social, geopolitical, and economic lenses. It analyses how aluminium uproots communities wherever the sector is represented, while industry actors adopt a green, modern, and inclusive narrative.

The discussion focuses on the 2025 Climate Conference (COP 30) in Belém, Brazil. The aluminium sector featured prominently at COP 30, hosting its own pavilion with panels and exhibitions, with representatives participating in several national delegations. Yet the conference unfolded at only a short distance from Alunorte, the world’s largest alumina refinery. Communities living around this facility organized events at the parallel People’s Summit and led visiting journalists on a “Toxic Tour,” highlighting long-standing environmental injustices. At the same time, unionized aluminium workers mobilized around COP 30 to demand a fair share of the industry’s growing profits.

Drawing on several years of research on the aluminium industry, this contribution relies on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the diverse spaces shaped and created by aluminium in and around COP30. It illuminates how at this moment in November 2025, the conflicting scenes of the aluminium paradox - and the plural environmentalisms that challenge it - were staged simultaneously in the single setting of the climate negotiations.