This undated handout photo obtained on July 21, 2026, from Luke Bridgestock of the University of St Andrews shows a view of the Tinto River, with pollution from acid mine drainage, in the Iberian Pyrite Belt in southwest Spain. New research published in Environmental Science and Technology on July 22, 2026, shows the carbon footprint linked to metal mining could be 10 times greater than previously thought, with major implications for net-zero ambitions. Metal mining is highly energy-intensive, and conventional estimates for its carbon footprint attribute most of its emissions to heavy equipment on-site, as well as diesel transport required to haul ore away. Luke Bridgestock of the University of St Andrews and colleagues instead looked at a process called acid mine drainage, a common side effect of mining that, despite being well-understood, had never properly been quantified before this study. The team focused on the Iberian Pyrite Belt in Spain, a copper-mining region with 82 active or historic mines going back to 1875 that generates more acid mine drainage than anywhere else in the world. (Photo by Luke Bridgestock / University of St Andrews / AFP via Getty Images) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / University of St Andrews / Luke Bridgestock" - HANDOUT - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS / TO GO WITH AFP STORY by Issam AHMED, "Metal mining's carbon footprint could be 10 times greater than thought: study"

Volunteer coordinator Tatyana Kozyk cleans the skeleton of a mastodonsaurus, a huge amphibian that walked the Earth 240 million years ago, at the Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw, Poland, Tuesday, July 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Claudia Ciobanu)

Scientist Tomasz Sulej, from the Institute of Paleobiology at the Polish Academy of Sciences, inspects the skeleton of a mastodonsaurus, a huge amphibian that walked the Earth 240 million years ago, at the Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw, Poland, Tuesday, July 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Claudia Ciobanu)

Under the watchful eye of scientists, volunteers clean the skeleton of a mastodonsaurus, a huge amphibian that walked the Earth 240 million years ago, at the Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw, Poland, Tuesday, July 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Claudia Ciobanu)

Under the watchful eye of scientists, volunteers clean the skeleton of a mastodonsaurus, a huge amphibian that walked the Earth 240 million years ago, at the Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw, Poland, Tuesday, July 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Claudia Ciobanu)

(FILES) A photo taken on October 4, 2023 in Manta, near Turin, shows a smartphone and a laptop displaying the logos of the artificial intelligence OpenAI research laboratory and ChatGPT robot. ChatGPT maker OpenAI said July 21 that its advanced artificial intelligence models had gone rogue during security testing, hacking into a popular platform for programmers on their own. (Photo by MARCO BERTORELLO / AFP via Getty Images)

FILE - Concertina wire lines the interior of a border wall separating Tijuana, Mexico, from the United States, June 4, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

This photograph taken on June 22, 2026 shows employees of the on-demand home-services platform Snabbit, attending an orientation session at the company's training centre in Bengaluru. For decades, households in India have relied on an informal army of domestic workers hired through word of mouth to mop floors, wash dishes and cook meals. Now a growing crop of startups, such as Snabbit, Pronto and Urban Company, is attempting to bring structure to the largely unregulated sector that employs an estimated 30 million workers, most of them women. (Photo by Idrees MOHAMMED / AFP via Getty Images)