JANUARY 14, 2025
By Susan Park, University of Sydney, Teresa Kramarz, University of Toronto, Craig Johnson, University of Guelph
The rapid uptake of renewable energy globally is welcome. Yet it depends on mining critical minerals. This can impact on communities and ecosystems. Here we look at attempts to mitigate these impacts through transnational initiatives.
The underwhelming conclusion of COP29 held this year in Azerbaijan once again highlighted the urgent need for meaningful climate action. Despite awareness of the risks, efforts to reduce carbon emissions remain insufficient to hold or reduce emissions to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Scientists warn that we are edging closer to planetary tipping points, with current trajectories steering us toward a dangerous world of over 3.0°C warming. This stark reality underscores not only the critical importance of decarbonization but also the need to rapidly expand and invest in renewable energy.
The growth of solar and wind and the uptake of electric vehicles in China, Europe, and the United States demonstrate that this is possible. Yet the global transition has unintended consequences. The transition is more mineral intensive than carbon based energy sources. Manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines and long life battery storage technologies requires ‘critical minerals’ such as lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements. Sourcing them can contribute to people, predominantly in the Global South, being dispossessed, local and global ecosystems being degraded, and commodity-exporting economies becoming locked into unequal terms of trade and dependence. Land dispossession, ecosystem degradation and commodity dependent development are part of the dark side of the renewable energy transition – issues that are obscured or discounted when policymakers and corporate actors in the Global North focus narrowly on triumphant narratives.
The dark side of the transition raises questions of governance and accountability. While the International Energy Agency tends to promote energy cooperation and access for states, there is little in the way of global rules for what some call ‘renewables extractivism’. So what does the governance landscape look like to mitigate harms from the extraction of critical minerals for renewable energy? Park, Kramarz and Johnson created a database of 44 transnational governance initiatives that emerged since 2010 to mitigate the negative environmental and social impacts of critical minerals mining. The data reveals two broad trends.
First, there are significant ‘governance gaps’ in what is being governed. Governance gaps refer to an absence of norms, rules, and practices regulating the activity of state, industry, and voluntary actors. These gaps manifest in several ways. The regulations focus on a handful of specific minerals such as the 3TG and conflict minerals (Tin, Tantalum, Tungsten and Gold), while materials like sand which is used for concrete in wind turbines receive far less attention. Even in the emerging literature on critical minerals most research is focused on cobalt extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and lithium extraction in the ‘lithium-ion triangle’ of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile – despite Australia being the largest exporter of lithium in the world. While there is a plethora of environmental and social issues covered from child labour to broad environmental impacts, other harms such as overuse and contamination of water are notably absent, while impact on Indigenous Rights needs more scrutiny. This is notable considering that 69% of existing or planned critical mineral mining projects are located on or near the lands of Indigenous people and peasant communities in Latin America, Asia and Africa.. Although two well established international instruments – the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas – establish clear standards of treatment and rights, the study reveals that companies, international organizations, and even civil society organizations seeking to hold mining companies accountable for their actions tend to apply standards based on narrow institutional priorities. In other words, if current trends are an indication of future practice some actors, minerals, and impacts will be governed, measured, monitored, and verified for compliance – while others will not.
The second trend evident in the study of existing regulations is the fragmented landscape of standards In the database we note that transnational initiatives have been created by international organizations like the European Union, with its Critical Raw Materials Act and the OECD with guidelines for ‘Practical Actions for companies to identify and address the worst forms of child labor in mineral supply chains’ (2017). There are also a significant number of initiatives created by mining associations for mining companies such as Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) and the International Council for Mining and Metals , as well as hybrid initiatives created by a mixture of public, private, and civil society organizations, with fully multi-stakeholder initiatives of all three actors being less common. The consequences of this fragmented landscape are varied. First, it encourages a lax approach to managing supply chains, leading to numerous disruptions for both people and ecosystems, when stricter enforcement is necessary to reduce known harms. Second, without clear state-backed regulations, companies encounter a multitude of evolving reporting requirements, potentially resulting in audit fatigue. Finally, the proliferation of standards and certification schemes can confuse consumers and facilitate greenwashing. Park et al argue that this leads to the potential for ‘accountability traps.’ This occurs when actors, such as mining companies, are held accountable for meeting their own standards (such as producing a sustainability report) while not necessarily mitigating different types of displacements.
While the proliferation of transnational initiatives for governing renewables extractivism is continuing, the strength of these initiatives also deserves scrutiny. For example, we highlight the voluntary nature of many of these initiatives – meaning that there is little in the way of sanctions should companies fail to meet the standards they themselves agreed upon. Of the 44 initiatives in our study, 21 are based on the signatory agreeing to implement the standards through their own activities, 11 agree to a certification system, and another 11 agree to be monitored by a third party for implementation. However, when it comes to compliance only five discuss the potential for sanctions and delisting, two mention criminal proceedings and one discusses fines and financial implications. In sum, while there is focus on governing some critical minerals over others, those being governed have the potential for accountability traps, where actors agree to meet (some) standards but are not held accountable for not meeting them.
To make the energy transition more just and sustainable we need to fill these governance gaps and prevent accountability traps. We need to have political conversations and agreement on the principles for the transition at local, national and international levels. This is foundational for guiding both global supply chain governance, and downstream policies that promote the uptake of renewable energy technologies. As renewable energy users, we must critically examine our values, priorities, and the trade-offs connected with the energy transition: What do we value? What are the tradeoffs? What do we prioritize? Who should decide? Devising post hoc accountability mechanisms works at the margins of harms caused by a transition that displaces vulnerable communities and ecosystems to mitigate climate change rather than tackle the problems head on. Based on our study, the current transition remains unsustainable when fighting climate change means sacrificing ecosystems and communities.
Contact:
Susan Park – susan.park@sydney.edu.au
Teresa Kramarz – teresa.kramarz@utoronto.ca
Craig Johnson – cjohns06@uoguelph.ca
Contribution: Emma Wilson (ECW), Ellen Marie Jensen (APRI), Simon Batterbury (Uni Melbourne & Uni Lancaster), Gerti Saxinger (Uni Vienna & Austrian Polar Research Institute APRI)
