After five months of discussion, the UN Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals launched a report on Wednesday containing a set of seven principles to underpin responsible, fair and sustainable extraction of critical minerals for clean energy supply chains.

“The essence of this report is to inspire care and caution to avoid the mistakes of the past,” said South Africa’s UN ambassador Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko, who co-chaired the panel. “We’ve already seen conflict generated by the scramble for these resources, particularly in my continent.”

Critical minerals – among them lithium, nickel and rare earth elements – are essential for manufacturing renewable energy technologies including electric vehicles and batteries. At the COP28 UN climate summit, governments agreed to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 – a goal that is also set to triple demand for minerals by the end of the decade.

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

But expanding mining at the scale required poses environmental and social risks, particularly for indigenous communities. A 2022 study, which reviewed more than 5,000 critical mineral mining projects, found that more than half were located on or near Indigenous lands.

Principles for just mining

The principles proposed by the UN panel say that human rights must be “at the core” of mineral value chains. They also urge safeguards for nature, adopting a justice perspective, sharing financial benefits with local communities, investing responsibly, ensuring accountability, and promoting international cooperation.

To enforce the principles, the panel also recommended five actions, among them setting up a high-level advisory group to facilitate dialogue on the issue and a transparency system to shed light on mineral value chains, which could be piloted in “two or three” mineral-producing developing countries.

UN chief António Guterres convened the panel of experts in April, gathering representatives from 25 governments, as well as from the mining industry, finance, Indigenous peoples and civil society.

He said its report identifies ways “to ground the renewables revolution in justice and equity, so that it spurs sustainable development, respects people, protects the environment, and powers prosperity in resource-rich developing countries”.

Indonesia turns traditional Indigenous land into nickel industrial zone

Suneeta Kaimal, CEO of the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) who participated in the panel’s deliberations, said that up to now the mining sector and the international system had failed developing nations in delivering justice and equity, but the panel report could serve as a first step for a “new norm”.

“A new paradigm in the mining sector is not going to transform overnight, but this is a very important series of first steps. Developing producer countries have a right to expect that the mining sector can deliver shared benefits, value addition and economic diversification,” Kaimal told Climate Home News.

Broader consultation on the principles will be carried out among governments and other groups in the run-up to November’s COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan.

Finding common ground

Both Mxakato-Diseko and Kaimal said the panel had convened a diverse group of experts, who were tasked with finding common ground on important issues such as transparency and benefit-sharing with local communities.

The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), an industry organisation that participated in the panel, issued a statement welcoming parts of the report, but noted it “had hoped and advocated for the Principles to go further in areas where the roles of governments and international bodies are essential to ‘raise the floor’ of mining practices”.

The ICMM has advocated for the adoption of industry standards on responsible mining, overseen by “an independent, multi-stakeholder governance body” outside the UN system. Civil society groups have criticised this initiative, arguing against “self-regulation” by business.

The UN can set a new course on “critical” transition minerals

NRGI’s Kaimal noted that the report had missed opportunities for more ambitious language in some parts, including the acknowledgement of Indigenous rights – where it cited only existing agreements – and more specific definitions of a “fair share” of benefits from mining projects and “no-go zones” where they should be avoided.

While the experts sought and built on common ground, the discussions took place in the context of global geopolitics, Kaimal said – “and you can’t ignore that elephant in the room”.

But, she added, governments now have “a pathway to continue the dialogue”. “Bringing the recommended actions to life will be an important part of the next steps,” she said.

(Reporting by Sebastián Rodríguez, editing by Megan Rowling)

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The remarks were made during Guterres’ first major address on climate change, during the week US president Donald Trump has said he will decide whether to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

Without referring directly to Trump, Guterres’ speech at the New York University Stern School of Business on Tuesday was tailored to neuter the arguments for leaving the accord laid out by some of the president’s more conservative advisors.

“Some may seek to portray the response to climate change as a fundamental threat to the economy.  Yet what we are witnessing in these early years of a systemic response is the opposite,” said Guterres.

He said the opportunities of the transition away from fossil fuel were now irresistible; that countries, states, cities and businesses were all shifting their futures towards clean energy.

Guterres’ message was clear: “The sustainability train has left the station.  Get on board or get left behind… Those who fail to bet on the green economy will be living in a grey future.”

Indeed, said Guterres, the ambition of countries needed to be increased rather than drawn down – which is one option suggested by those who would see the US stay in the agreement but lower the cuts to pollution it has promised to make.

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“Yes, not everyone will move at the same pace or with equal vigour,” he admitted. “But if any government doubts the global will and need for this accord, that is reason for all others to unite even stronger and stay the course.”

Trump has voiced concern that the Paris accord represents a danger to the US economy and blamed climate regulations for the decline in the US coal industry.

This weekend, at a G7 leaders summit in Italy, Trump refused to sign up to a statement voicing support for the climate deal. Instead, the meeting issued a bifurcated communiqué on climate action that allowed the US to stand apart from the other six nations while it was “reviewing its policies”.

Immediately after the meeting, Trump said on Twitter that he would announce this week his “final decision” on whether to stay in the deal or withdraw the US this week.

Guterres listed a range of crises facing the global community: population growth, rapid and chaotic urbanisation, food insecurity, water scarcity and massive migration.

“Allow me to be blunt. The world is in a mess,” he said. But “far and away at the top of that list” was climate change.

He said he would be lobbying industry, business and governments to implement carbon pricing and stimulate flows of climate finance to the poor world.

In order to motivate leaders from around the world to advance a more positive agenda, the secretary general announced he would convene a climate summit in 2019. A similar meeting was convened by his predecessor Ban Ki Moon before the Paris summit in 2015 that produced the global deal.

Guterres said the meeting would “make sure we reach the critical first review of Paris implementation [which will happen later that year] with the strong wind of a green economy at our backs”.

The intervention adds Guterres’ voice to a growing list of global leaders who have privately and publicly implored Trump to remain within the agreement. They include the presidents of France and Germany as well as Pope Francis. Other nations, including China and India have reiterated their commitment to the deal in recent weeks.

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