Stronger Transition Minerals Governance Is Imperative for Biodiversity Conservation

Effective climate action requires a holistic approach; yet the critically related issues of biodiversity and mineral governance are too often tackled in isolation. For world leaders gathering at the COP16 biodiversity conference, and looking ahead to the COP29 and COP30 climate conferences, there are tremendous opportunities for concerted action on this critical triple nexus.

A dangerous disconnect: The importance of transition minerals and biodiversity to climate action

Transition minerals are essential to achieving the UNFCCC COP28 commitments to a just and orderly transition away from fossil fuels, which requires a tripling of renewable power and doubling of energy efficiency by 2030. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that demand for minerals to power solar panels, wind turbines and electric batteries will triple by 2030 and quadruple by 2040.

However, nearly 40 percent of those minerals are in countries that exhibit weak or failing governance, which means they lack the laws, policies, practices and accountability mechanisms to ensure that mining does no harm and instead delivers benefits to their populations. More than half of the potential reserves for transition minerals are also located on lands where Indigenous or peasant groups hold recognized or claimed rights.

Mining’s detrimental impact on the environment is well known—and the risk of further damage is increased by the race to secure transition minerals. In Indonesia, the rapidly expanding mining of nickel needed for lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles and renewable energy storage has already resulted in the deforestation of an area of tropical forest the size of New York City. Close to one-third of Brazil’s critical minerals reserves are located beneath the Amazon Basin, posing a high risk of deforestation in one of the world’s most biodiverse areas. As the quality and concentration of copper ores decline, mining companies are expanding exploration in highly biodiverse areas, such as the Andean-Amazonian Piedmont, the Chocó Forest in Colombia and Ecuador’s Intag cloud forest. 

The protection and promotion of forests and biodiversity complement the move to clean energy. Forests help stabilize the climate, contribute to food and water security, protect human health, and support adaptation to a warming planet. David Kaimowitz, of the International Land and Forest Tenure Facility, recently suggested that “when it comes to storing carbon, forests can potentially buy an extra 10 or 20 years for the Earth to manage its transition from fossil fuels.” Biodiversity enhances the resilience and balance of ecosystems, ensuring that natural systems continue to sustain life. It is especially vital for local communities and Indigenous Peoples, who depend on these ecosystems for their livelihoods and cultural practices. Recognizing the importance of biodiversity, 88 heads of state have signed the Leaders Pledge for Nature, committing to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.

However, public institutions, social organizations and private companies working on forests, biodiversity or transition mineral governance often operate in silos. This is hugely problematic as the urgency to provide transition minerals—including opaque partnerships initiated by countries aiming to secure a steady supply of these minerals—can precipitate a race to the bottom that undermines socio-environmental and governance standards.

The path to good governance runs through the forest

Civil society organizations and the international community working on mining governance should adopt a more holistic view of how nature contributes to sustainable development and human wellbeing. This includes valuing the traditional knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and designing programs and projects that recognize the overlap between mining and many other activities and traditions. Similarly, organizations working to protect biodiversity, Indigenous Peoples’ and communities’ rights should better integrate mining governance in their work, understanding the political economy dynamics that sustain patterns of extraction, and fighting the corruption that perpetuates asymmetric power relations. 

There are several immediate opportunities for actors to advance this more holistic approach:

• Implementing UN transition minerals guidance and recommendations. The UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals released guidance and recommended actions in September, placing mineral governance at the top of the climate agenda. The panel situated the guiding principle that “the integrity of the planet, its environment and biodiversity must be safeguarded” as an interconnected element of related principles on human rights, justice, economic development, anticorruption and peace. Panel members—including representative experts from producer countries like Chile, DRC and Indonesia; consuming countries and blocs like the European Union, China, U.S. and U.K; industry, investors; multilateral initiatives; civil society organizations and Indigenous Peoples movements—recognized the pressure that critical minerals extraction can place on people, biodiversity, water, geodiversity and ecosystems. The panel called for a new mining paradigm that encourages governments to declare protected areas as “no-go” zones for transition minerals extraction and calls for equitable targets and timelines for material efficiency and circularity approaches along the entire life cycle of transition minerals.
  
  Building on the work of the panel, the UN should draft international water and biodiversity protection guidelines for mining operations for the energy transition in cooperation with Indigenous Peoples and other relevant rightsholders and stakeholders. This should include stringent measures to protect sacred sites from mining activities, recognizing their cultural and spiritual significance. Governments and companies should prohibit and avoid any mineral exploration or development in protected conservation areas and other locations of high biodiversity, conservation and cultural heritage value, as well as high-value carbon sinks, and apply the precautionary principle to support effective environmental protection measures. Government and companies should also end criminalization of environmental defenders and recognize and commit to protecting their rights and legitimacy by adopting and disclosing relevant policies to protect them from attacks, assassination, extrajudicial killings, violence, harassment (including through the form of strategic litigation against public participation (SLAPP)), and repression, and provide effective reparation.
   
• Improving due diligence. Consumers increasingly expect companies to carry out due diligence on the provenance of the minerals they source. Guidelines like the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas provide frameworks for companies to address some social and environmental risks associated with mineral supply chains. The international community must ensure that due diligence standards include issues of mining governance, especially strong anticorruption measures, alongside effective provisions to protect forests and biodiversity, and that these are met. 
   
• Integrating minerals governance and biodiversity in just transition frameworks. There is increasing attention to the need to promote a just transition in the Global South, including a work program created at COP28 and financial mechanisms, such as just energy transition partnerships (JETPs), to help low- and middle-income countries accelerate the transition toward renewable energy. Global organizations and public institutions working on biodiversity should integrate provisions to protect forests and biodiversity in these programs, and ensure that these protections are among the just transition principles at the core of the UN climate convention. For example, Indonesia’s JETP secretariat included biodiversity as one of the standards guiding its approach to just transition. 
  
  This month’s COP16 biodiversity conference is also a pivotal opportunity to align conservation efforts with the imperative of a just energy transition. As host, the Colombian government is promoting a global agreement to advance responsible mining practices for the protection of life and the environment, building on the UN minerals panel recommendations. This and other spaces connecting climate and nature conversations are an opportunity to improve collaboration, especially as COP30 will be held in an Amazonian country, Brazil, in 2025. It is a crucial opportunity for governments and international agencies, such as the UNFCC and Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to shine a spotlight on the intersection of biodiversity conservation and a just energy transition.

A coalition between those who seek to preserve and protect biodiversity, forests, nature and the environment, and those working to ensure the scale-up of renewable technologies benefits, not harms people and planet would powerfully enable climate action. A focus on governance—on the laws and policies that shape actions, who has the power to take decisions, and who is held responsible for the results—will unify, amplify and accelerate these collective efforts. At COP16, NRGI will seize the opportunity to advance such concerted collaboration.