Critical Resources could Make or Break COP30 & All Our Futures
Martha Molfetas argues that Belem offers an opportunity to address the devil in the energy transition details.
Soon, diplomats and diverse stakeholders will descend on a city in the Amazon Rainforest for the world’s 30th global climate conference of the parties, or COP30. At a time of rapid expansion on renewable energy, increasing climate damages and rising inequality, the stakes couldn’t be higher. We’ve heard it before, but COP30 in Belem, Brazil really will make or break the Paris Agreement. New global goals will be hashed out and nations will affirm their commitments to climate action through their new nationally determined contributions or NDCs. Belem will also mark an important turning point for just transition dialogues on workforces, potentially through the proposed Belem Mechanism for Just Transition. Like with all United Nations climate conferences, all our futures are at stake, what could go wrong?
Our climate challenge is an energy challenge, both in the cause and in the solution. The lion’s share of all climate-causing emissions ever have come from burning fossil fuels. The only way we can address our climate crisis is through an energy transition towards renewables, like wind and solar. But harnessing renewables is predicated on access to an ever tightening supply of critical energy transition minerals like: lithium, nickel, cobalt, rare earth elements, copper, and a suite of other metals that are mined primarily in developing and climate vulnerable countries. The International Energy Agency estimates that demand for individual critical minerals will double or quadruple, and could yield an eight fold increase in demand for lithium alone by mid-century. How these resources are mined and whether or not mining communities’ benefit will matter greatly in the decades to come.
Renewable energy is both a climate adaptation and a climate mitigation solution. It’s no wonder it was one of the central goals to come out of COP28 in Dubai﹣to globally triple renewables by 2030. Since then, we’ve seen renewables expand rapidly, with renewable energy now producing more energy globally than coal for the first time ever this year; with solar’s share of global energy utility inching up to 40% an all-time high. But we are still emitting more fossil fuel-driven greenhouse gas emissions than ever before. Demand for energy is outpacing the speed of transition, both demand for household needs and the rising energy demand of data centers and artificial intelligence.
How these resources are mined and how mining communities can benefit will shape whether or not justice is a part of our global climate resiliency and energy transition efforts. In many cases, nations possessing critical minerals are wrangling with high debt burdens and high climate vulnerability. Failure to incorporate human rights and social protections for mining communities and miners within annual global climate convenings will mean setting many countries up for compounding development hurdles; to say nothing of perpetuating colonial economic paradigms built on exploitation and resource curse dynamics.
While past climate conferences have set renewable energy goals and established emission cutting aspirations, to date, critical minerals have largely been left out of these climate dialogues. In essence, the COP-process has been uninterested in how the hot dog is made, but wants to ensure there are enough of them to satiate hunger for energy alternatives. This has been a blind spot to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change annual COP-process, but it doesn’t have to continue to be.
The just transition workforce dialogues at Belem could hold the key for a justice-centered energy transition that goes hand in hand with robust climate action. Currently, the just transition work forum is a space to address how a changing climate will harm workforces and to help beleaguered workers transition from fossil fuel jobs; but at COP30 this working group could do much more; they can enshrine workforce protections for folks mining the critical resources that will power our renewable energy transformation and promote better environmental stewardship. The world’s fourth Industrial Revolution towards a green economy is already underway, but these essential workforces have been side stepped to date in annual climate conferences. This agenda could build off of and integrate the best practices identified in a recent UN Secretary General report on critical minerals, like: imbedding human rights in supply chains, anti-corruption measures, and environmental safeguards.
It’s no wonder many African nations have called for critical resources to be an integral part of COP30’s wider energy transition and just work transition agendas. Just this month, over 150 civil society organizations have signed an open letter calling on the annual climate conference to address the justice, human rights, and environmental challenges facing critical resource mining. The momentum is building for COP30 to take on an issue the UNFCCC process has largely ignored. We can’t face our climate crisis without an energy transition, and we cannot have an energy transition without critical resources. Putting forward a COP30 outcome that includes critical resources and sets goals to protect mining communities from damages is a start. Doing this would put justice-centered approaches front and center on renewable energy and fortify the COP28 Dubai goal to triple renewables.
Instead of sustainable supply chains being left to individual nations and the EU, a COP30 outcome on critical minerals could transform global cooperation towards best practices. Communities should not be left worse off from mining the minerals and metals that will allow us to address our climate crisis through energy transition. Renewable energy has the power to greatly reduce emissions and bring reliable energy to those without. Mining communities need to share in these benefits and access renewable energy. Ethiopia has taken a leap to begin manufacturing electric vehicles using the lithium and cobalt they are mining nationally, all to directly benefit their national economy and expand economic opportunities for Ethiopians. But Ethiopia is not alone, investments across the African continent could see renewables covering 76% of all energy capacity by 2040.
The future is renewable. It’s up to COP30 negotiators to decide if that renewable future ought to better include critical resources and the mining communities a renewable future will rely on. Belem offers an opportunity to address the devil in the energy transition details across critical resource challenges, and break the resource curse dynamics that have long held back many resource abundant and dependent nations. The just transition work talks at COP30 need to include critical resources. Otherwise, the renewable economy will be perpetuating similar resource curse dynamics we’ve seen play out from colonialism to the present. We can do better, getting there will be a matter of global political will.
Martha Molfetas is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, where she teaches Environmental Economics. Martha is a senior climate and energy policy consultant, writer, and strategist with over 15-years of experience helping NGOs, think tanks, and businesses unpack climate, environmental justice, resource conflict, sustainable development, and global policy issues – most recently as a Senior Fellow at New America.
Her work has been published in Current Affairs, The World Politics Review, The Global Policy Journal, Policy Mic, Common Dreams, and others.
Photo by Italo Melo
