Ensuring a just transition for critical minerals

Interview with Nozipho J. Mxakato-Diseko, former co-chair, Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals

Why are critical energy transition minerals important in fostering a just energy transition?

Critical minerals are at the core of our lives today, including adjusting or responding to climate change. You and I are talking over Zoom. We saw during Covid-19 how education and health care relied on online engagement. So much today relies on artificial intelligence, which is a very large consumer of critical minerals. So the topic for the G20 acquires broad, urgent dimensions in addressing climate change and achieving a just transition.

Indeed it’s at the core of geopolitical contestations, which we tried to address in the report of the Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals. Either countries work together and swim together, or they sink together. Unhealthy competition may constrain the global economy, and will affect global peace and stability.

There are two facets to climate change. One is the need to mitigate carbon emissions, finding energy sources that do not significantly contribute to emissions. The other is in relation to developing countries, which produce most of the critical minerals. That provides them the opportunity for revenue to fast track their development. But previous mining booms have left developing countries’ economies hollowed out and distorted. Critical minerals must not repeat that cycle of impoverishment. So how can they benefit in ways that do not worsen the problem of climate change?

It’s a complex problem in relation to a just transition. When I was ambassador at large on climate change working on the Paris Agreement, building on the earlier negotiations at Durban, labour unions were worried that actions would affect the rights to have a decent job, to organise and to a living wage. We put their language as is into the preamble of the Paris Agreement. I’m very sensitive to the needs of the workers, especially with many being dislocated by technologies driven by critical minerals.

What were the panel’s main
recommendations?

We proposed seven principles that are voluntary but in fact are anchored in existing legally binding instruments that all the member states have signed on to. We framed them as guardrails. The first is that respect for all human rights must be at the core of all the critical mineral value chains, especially the integration of civil and political rights with socio-economic and cultural rights. This includes social protection for women and the 40-hour work week. 

Second is the need to safeguard the integrity of the planet and its environment and biodiversity. The third is that justice and equity must underpin critical mineral value chains. The fourth is the right to development, which must be fostered through benefit sharing, value addition and economic diversification. Fifth is the need for investment, finance and trade to be responsible. Sixth is transparency, accountability and anticorruption, because some developing countries have mortgaged their futures in contracts that cede benefits in perpetuity without conditions because they needed money for development. Seventh is the importance of multilateral and international cooperation: if countries collaborate, there might be a better way to anchor the global economy so global peace is secured.

How well have the principles been accepted and implemented?

Everyone’s talking about creating their own guardrails, drawing on the panel’s work.  The International Labour Organization is taking these principles into account in assessing member states. The Human Rights Council is developing an approach inspired by our work. But implementation will rely on governments, intergovernmental processes and multilateral institutions – and especially civil society. 

The bigger issue is geopolitical contestations. Big powers are assuming there are ways to bypass the principles. Surely in this day and age you cannot appropriate or seize territory. Yet we’ve seen attempts to do this. 

We are seeing more attempts to reach agreement among small groups of countries or between regions, however. The principles can be used to assess those agreements. To catalyse the implementation of these principles, we proposed a global traceability framework. That’s pertinent in areas of conflict such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the situation is horrific for children and women. The principles point to collaboration and cooperation, rather than a winner-takes-all situation.

How can the G20 leaders best help get the principles implemented and improved?

South Africa is building on India’s work on critical minerals to have a programmatic framework. That is the value of multilateral discussions or intergovernmental processes. Timeframes may not always allow for sufficient discussions to produce high-level ambitious outcomes. South Africa’s proposal draws on the guiding principles for many developing countries, which often don’t even know the full extent of what they have. It would serve the global economy to understand what are the sum total of reserves and where they are available so we can make sure that the value chains enable everybody to share them equitably and justly. 

It is my hope that the G20 leaders will come out with an understanding of how fundamentally the global economy has changed, because of technological advances that have created unease – and at the centre of those advances are critical minerals. Care needs to be exercised in advance, rather than leaping from crisis to crisis. G20 leaders must fully grasp the extent to which these minerals are so important. This places the responsibility on them. But it’s a process. They will not be able to do it in one shot. They need to continue the conversation.