Just Transition or Just Extraction? Transition Minerals and Human Rights
As governments and companies transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, minerals – including nickel, lithium, cobalt, and copper – are needed to build new technologies, such as solar panels, electric vehicle batteries, and windmills. While the transition is essential, if not carried out in a rights-respecting way the extraction, transportation, and processing of transition minerals threatens human rights and the environment. Mining, including open-pit mining, can permanently damage ecosystems, make air unbreathable and water undrinkable, forcibly displace local communities, and threaten the rights of Indigenous Peoples, whose lands are home to a majority of transition mineral projects. A just, sustainable transition to renewable energy should fully respect human rights and international law, including the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.
This event will discuss the human and environmental costs of mining and processing transition minerals. We will discuss Climate Rights International’s report, “Nickel Unearthed,” and subsequent work to address the human rights and climate impacts of nickel mining in Indonesia (the world’s largest producer of nickel), as well as our current work in the Philippines. We’ll discuss corporate responsibility and accountability, including the role of EV and mining companies, and the challenges faced by local communities when dealing with powerful multinational companies, many of which are based in China. We’ll also dive into efforts to advance environmental and climate justice, including civil society and multilateral initiatives, such as the OECD Forum on Responsible Mineral Supply Chains and the UN Secretary General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals. Finally, we’ll discuss the threats to rights posed on frontline communities in the U.S. and around the world by the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to minerals and extractivism.
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