Principles to guide critical energy transition minerals towards equity and justice
UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals
The global climate crisis has arrived. 2024 included the three hottest days in recorded history, with deadly extreme heat affecting much of Asia and the Middle East. Raging wildfires devastated parts of North America and Europe. Record-setting floods have inundated communities from Brazil to Bangladesh. Severe droughts beset Southern Africa. Artic permafrost is in thaw. Sea levels are rising, wildfires are burning, extreme heat is crippling. The window to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement is closing.
Humanity is facing multiple inter-related crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and poverty, and our continued reliance on fossil fuels is pushing us towards irreversible tipping points. There is still time, humanity with a shared future must act decisively to accelerate a global energy transition. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, governments agreed to triple the roll out of renewable energy and double energy efficiency by 2030. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that demand for the critical energy transition minerals required to enable this global energy transition will triple by 2030, and quadruple by 2040.
A transition of this magnitude brings with it tremendous opportunities, but also substantial challenges. Mining, at all scales, large and small, has too often been linked with human rights abuses, environmental degradation and conflict. Indigenous Peoples’ lands and resources have been dispossessed and the lives of local peoples upended. Responsible companies, across the entire value chain, working to reform the sector continue to face an uneven playing field, with insufficient incentives for irresponsible actors to meet acceptable standards. Yet harnessing critical energy transition minerals to build the renewable energy technologies needed to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and net zero emissions by 2050, also has the potential to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty through access to affordable, modern and sustainable energy and energy technologies. Developing countries as partners in the energy transition can foster development through opportunities for value addition, benefit-sharing, economic diversification and participation in the critical energy transition minerals value chains that will power the next generations, rather than serve only as the providers of raw materials. This is why the United Nations SecretaryGeneral established the Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, to develop Guiding Principles which can serve as guardrails for the energy transition.