Excellencies, civil society leaders and friends: It was a great privilege to share the knowledge and experience of civil society as part of the UN Panel on Critical Transition Minerals.

At the Natural Resource Governance Institute our mission echoes the clarion call of the UN Panel: Justice requires change. Changing whose voice determines whether, where and how to extract. Changing for what purpose and under what terms mining occurs. Changing who benefits and the power imbalances and structural inequities that persist. In just four months, the panel initiated much needed change in three important ways.

First, the actionable recommendation to advance value addition, benefit sharing and economic diversification responded to the question we hear most often from Global South producers: how will this mining boom be different for us?

To enact this recommendation, we need resources for reform. The climate finance goal to be agreed at COP29 must include concessional finance for Global South transition mineral-producing countries to support viable value addition facilities. To address energy, infrastructure and skilled labor bottlenecks and enable economic diversification. And to ensure that the benefits of increased mineral circularity are shared equitably.

Second, the panel recognized that corruption harms both people and the planet. Our research shows that corruption undermines social and environmental protections and delays urgently needed transition mineral production—sometimes for years.

The actionable recommendation on traceability can help by enabling regulators, investors and end-users to scrutinize human rights and environmental practices, conflict of interest risks, and economic fairness across the value chain. Now, we need leadership from member states and to transform voluntary standards into binding action. The Colombian government has demonstrated such initiative in calling for an international agreement on traceability. We encourage others to follow their lead.

Lastly, the panel enshrined the centrality of human rights and multi-stakeholder participation to a new mining paradigm. As panel members, we benefitted from the collective expertise, audacity and relentless optimism of more than 300 civil society organizations.

However, civil society around the world is under threat. The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law found that 87 percent of recent legal initiatives impacting civic space are restrictive. In my own country, the United States, ascendant powers have vilified and threatened the media. And here in Azerbaijan authorities have wrongfully imprisoned advocates for fair and transparent governance of natural resources. We call for their immediate and unconditional release.

The work of our panel is a start, not an end. We commit to bringing our knowledge and networks to transform mining governance. To hold us all accountable, we welcome the Secretary-General to report on the implementation of the Panel’s guidance in one year’s time at COP30. Let us together demonstrate the will and resources to put equity and justice at the heart of climate action. 

The human and environmental costs of mining are no secret; they underscore the vital importance of transformation in the sector. And demand for minerals essential to production of solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles mean that it more urgent than ever for international actors to ensure that mining’s dark history is not repeated as the energy transition gathers momentum.

Recognizing this urgency, UN Secretary-General António Guterres at last year’s COP28 called for a high-level panel to address the challenges of mineral governance, with the UN publishing the panel’s guidance in September 2024.

The panel’s seven guiding principles and recommendations set a new course for the governance of mineral supply chains, one that promises equitable benefit-sharing with, and economic opportunities for, the people and countries at the beginning of the chain. The journey will be long, and the scope of needed international policy action is broad, from a reset to customary benefit-sharing arrangements between governments and companies to upgrading anticorruption practice to boosting circularity and establishing “no-go zones” to protect nature.

With COP29 underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have three opportunities to spur and complement progress toward minerals governance that drives sustainable and inclusive development:

Link minerals governance priorities to renewable energy scale-up

In the first global stocktake of progress toward the aims of the Paris Agreement, at COP28, countries called for a tripling of renewable energy capacity by 2030. As countries move to answer this call over the second half of this “critical decade,” they should work to align and strengthen linkages between the agenda set out by the UN minerals panel and decisions and actions agreed through the UN climate process. The obvious starting point is reference to the guiding principles set out by the UN panel in all future references to the renewables scale-up, starting at COP29.

There’s also potential to integrate or cross-reference reporting on traceability, transparency and accountability across the mineral value chain with related reporting on progress towards tripling renewable energy capacity. And, as efforts to boost material efficiency and circularity approaches gather steam, the countries party to the Paris Agreement could link these to emissions reduction measures in future national climate targets (nationally determined contributions, or NDCs) and related transparency mechanisms.

Provide for minerals benefit sharing within the new climate finance goal

Agreement on a new climate finance goal (the “new collective quantified goal on climate finance” or NCQG) is the main goal countries are working toward at COP29. Negotiations on this agenda item have been underway for two years, with one important debate centering around the scope and intended purpose of climate finance.

In their latest report ahead of COP29 the finance negotiation co-chairs noted the opportunity to include in the overall finance goal “… sub-goals reflecting specific outputs or outcomes, such as the target to triple renewable energy capacity globally…”. The relevance of investments in greater benefit-sharing, value addition and economic diversification in low- and middle-income mineral-producing countries is a compelling reason to include it in the list of priorities eligible for climate finance under the new goal.

Cement enhanced minerals governance in just transition pathways

The one place where transition minerals are specifically referenced in the UN climate process is the Just Transition Work Program (JTWP). The chairs’ report from the most recent JTWP dialogue already contains several references, including to unequal benefits (“particularly regarding the extraction of critical minerals and localization of profits arising from that extraction,” (para. 34)), technology cooperation and transfer (para. 174), and even the UN panel report and its guiding principles, specifically (also para. 174).

Less a politically charged negotiation and more a space for mutual exchange and learning on the technical aspects of building and support just transitions, many Global South countries see this work program as an important pivot to make the UN climate convention and its Paris Agreement more responsive and aligned with their sustainable development priorities. By fully integrating the UN panel’s guiding principles as well as its actionable recommendations in the work program’s proceedings going forward, the countries party to the Paris Agreement can help ensure minerals governance features in just transition strategies and plans in relevant national contexts—and provide the basis for stronger linkages with the UN climate regime as renewable energy capacity is scaled to deliver on the Paris/1.5°C goal.

At NRGI we look forward to engaging a range of stakeholders in Baku and beyond to explore these and other potential linkages toward a just and equitable transformation of transition minerals governance.

The perspectives of low- and middle-income oil- and gas-producing countries are absolutely critical to the global conversation about methane emissions reduction. 

First, regarding transparency, we must build the public debate and accountability on methane reduction within producer countries. This is an exceptionally powerful tool for ensuring that policies and commitments actually translate into action.

Second, national oil companies account for more than half of the world’s petroleum production, and that number is likely to increase. But we also know that many NOCs are not delivering on their commitments. One of these is Mexico’s Pemex. They have multiple commitments to bring down emissions. They're backed by a legal framework, but we need greater transparency, incentives and financing to be able to deliver on that.

Lastly, we must ensure that efforts to reduce methane emissions don't inadvertently trample on the poor. We know that addressing methane reduction is essential for the capacity of these low- and middle-income producing countries to trade in the global market, given consumer market practices and policies such as the EU methane regulations, but we need technical, financial and political support to ensure that we address methane initiatives and do not deepen long standing inequities in our energy and economic system.