The global push toward renewable energy, intended to reduce climate-aggravating emissions, has revealed how the environmental and social costs of extracting the minerals it requires fall disproportionately on local communities and ecosystems.  

Many argue that electromobility and renewable energy technologies will help mitigate climate change – but adopting them on a large scale would require a massive increase in the mining of minerals such as lithium, which are key to their development.  

According to the World Bank, the extraction of 3 billion tons of minerals over the next 30 years is crucial to powering the global energy transition. The International Energy Agency further predicts a four-fold increase in mineral extraction by 2040 to meet climate targets.  

However, the rush for these so-called “critical” minerals risks amplifying the very crises it seeks to help solve, exacerbating ecological degradation and perpetuating socio-economic injustice in the Global South. 

Q&A: What you need to know about clean energy and critical minerals supply chains

The very naming of these transition minerals as “critical” creates a false sense of urgency, reinforcing the current damaging system of extraction, and failing to consider the protection of communities, ecosystems, and species in areas of exploitation. 

While mainstream strategies emphasize technological fixes, a deeper examination reveals that, without addressing the broader implications of mineral extraction, the quest for a greener future may only deepen existing environmental and human rights violations.  

UN-backed principles 

The UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals was formed in April this year to identify common and voluntary principles that will help developing countries benefit from equitable, fair and sustainable management of these minerals.  

The Panel brings together strange bedfellows – not least China and the US – and will need to work hard to create consensus to identify principles and recommendations for governments, companies, investors and the international community on human rights, environmental protection, justice and equity in value chains, benefit-sharing, responsible investments, transparency and international collaboration. It must raise the level of ambition and listen directly to civil society organizations and rights-holders, including local communities.  

Our reflection on what the Panel cannot ignore points to three elements: a status quo approach to “development”; a high level of technological optimism concerning mining; and a lack of urgency regarding ecosystem limits and communities’ rights.  

Indonesia turns traditional Indigenous land into nickel industrial zone

First, we acknowledge that the Panel is under pressure from powerful actors, but it will need to resist the assertion that mining is always beneficial to the economic growth and prosperity of nations. This status-quo perspective reinforces the notion of unlimited natural resources for human consumption, mirroring the economic development promises of the early 20th century, which contributed to the current climate crisis.   

The Panel must not fail to consider the possibility of degrowth or the imposition of limits on mining activities that could lead to reduced material and energy consumption. Nor should it neglect other forms of traditional and local knowledge that may offer possibilities for alternative development. 

Then, on the impacts, pollution and other ecosystem disruptions caused by mining, it is consistently stated that assessments and evaluations are necessary – and that these can preserve ecosystem integrity.  

The Panel must acknowledge the irreversibility of certain mining impacts on ecosystems, which are already evident. This belies the optimistic view that all mining problems can be resolved through technology, a notion that is both false and unrealistic. What’s more, it undermines the precautionary principle, which calls for protective action from suspected harms, even before scientific proof exists.  

Finally, in the dominant narrative, transition minerals are found in “empty” places, deemed void of life, where only the resources to be extracted are counted. This ignores both the biodiversity and traditional communities that inhabit these areas.  

Indigenous rights at risk 

More than half of the minerals needed for the energy transition are found in or near indigenous territories, which are already facing the consequences of the climate and ecological crisis, such as extreme aridity, permanent water shortages and scarce water availability.  

These impacts may be increased by mining project pressures and mineral extractive activities, which are already facing the impacts of the climate and ecological crisis, such as extreme aridity, permanent water shortages or scarce water availability.  

It is essential to ensure respect for the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination; to obtain their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) before projects are begun; to carry out human rights and environmental due diligence; and to ensure not only remediation of impacts but also the ability of local people to maintain their own cultural, social, economic and political ways. 

Lithium tug of war: the US-China rivalry for Argentina’s white gold

In addition, current plans for the extraction of transition minerals are limited to the scale of the mining concession in question, without considering the cumulative impacts derived from others operating in the same area and ignoring the socioeconomic activities already taking place in these ecosystems.  

Instead, it is essential to ensure the bio-capacity of ecosystems to maintain their life-supporting functions and the diversity of uses by communities in territories, not just industrial ones. Decisions on mineral extraction should not be based solely on market demand, but also on the biophysical limits of ecosystems and, more sensibly, on the balance of water systems.    

The UN Panel has been established at a time when we can apply the lessons learned from the historical impacts of mining worldwide. This calls for the Panel to raise the level of ambition of its work by generating and advancing binding guidelines and mechanisms.  

Gathered this week in Nairobi, the Panel is working to set the rules of the game, defining principles and recommendations which will be officially presented in September during the UN General Assembly. It has a unique opportunity to oversee substantive changes to the global energy system – one that we cannot afford to miss. 

The post The UN can set a new course on “critical” transition minerals   appeared first on Climate Home News.

For too long, Africa has supplied the raw materials which drive development abroad, while Africans remain locked in endless cycles of poverty at home.  

This has been happening even before Western European colonial powers carved up the African continent in the 19th century’s “scramble for Africa”, exporting rubber, diamonds, gold, ivory, palm oil and other wealth, to process and transform it into saleable commodities. 

Today, this damaging pattern remains intact, as wealth continues to haemorrhage from Africa in this way. 

To take just one graphic example: 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa – or 53% of the region’s population — still don’t have access to electricity on a continent that possesses all the minerals needed to build its own energy infrastructure.  

Now a new “scramble for Africa” has begun. This time, it is for the African minerals that will be crucial for the world to have any chance of halting climate chaos.  

Q&A: What you need to know about clean energy and critical minerals supply chains

The African continent holds vast quantities of the transition minerals – such as cobalt, lithium and nickel – which are used to help produce, transport, store and use electricity generated from cleaner sources such as wind and sun – and which are a prerequisite for a clean energy future.  

Tanzania, for instance, possesses huge reserves of nickel which is a key ingredient in the lithium-ion batteries that power everything from mobile phones to electric vehicles. 

As the world rushes to secure these precious materials, Africans must break with the past.  

The wealth these minerals generate must spur African development, giving our citizens the roads, hospitals, schools, electricity and other basic services so many of them desperately need. 

“New” partnerships? 

Many of Africa’s historic exploiters are among the Western powers which are now rushing to secure transition minerals. 

The US-led “Mineral Security Partnership,” which includes the European Union and other most powerful economies from the OECD block, is positioning itself in Africa’s resource-rich countries.  

Concurrently, the EU is supposedly redesigning its ties with Africa and other mineral-rich nations through “Strategic Partnerships“.  

All those initiatives are committed to “bring economic benefits to local communities”, allowing partner countries to “move up the value chain” – but are effectively enveloping the continent from multiple angles in a concerted push for resources. 

And it is no secret that mineral exports are ruled by international trade policies set up, influenced and dominated by Western powers, allowing them to access African resources at a good price. 

Zimbabwe looks to China to secure a place in the EV battery supply chain

In this realm, it remains an open question whether these partnerships will pave the way for genuine development, or – as so often in the past – merely serve foreign interests.  

In other words, will they simply be a means of continuing business as usual – keeping Africa trapped in ‘extractivism’ – or offer Africa a path to self-determination? 

Challenging the status quo 

The OECD Forum on Responsible Minerals Supply Chains, taking place this week in Paris, is a crucial opportunity for African leaders to assert their vision for a new era of mineral resource management.  

This event remains a forum dominated by consumer regions’ representatives and priorities, but we Africans need to make ourselves heard.  

We cannot wait any longer. African leaders must challenge the status quo and advocate for deals and trade policies that empower producer nations. 

They can also insist that mining companies respect the rights of the Indigenous and local communities most impacted by mining – peoples whose way of life protects priceless ecosystems that are crucial for preventing climate change, biodiversity loss and the risk of future pandemics emerging from deforested landscapes.  

Calls for responsible mining fail to stem rights abuses linked to transition minerals

Free trade rules favour already industrialised regions. One of the ways to counter this is by creating a web of preferential trade agreements among African countries. This would allow them to access their neighbours’ transition minerals at lower prices, to help them build their own clean energy technologies.  

Regional collaboration is the key to ensuring that Africa gains its rightful place in the new power map drawn by the energy transition. The African Union, the Southern African Development Community and other regional blocs could play a pivotal role in this process, promoting intra-regional trade and economic cohesion. 

African civil society works across borders to ensure that deals signed by African governments with consumer regions reflect the continent’s collective interests. But we can’t do this alone. 

We need to unite with our leaders around a just vision for our minerals. Only then can the continent truly benefit from them, turning the page on a history of exploitation and underdevelopment.  

The post Africa must reap the benefits of its energy transition minerals  appeared first on Climate Home News.