COP30, or the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is set to take place in Belém, Brazil from 10 to 21 November 2025, focusing on turning global climate pledges into concrete action and advancing the goals of the Paris Agreement.
“Our collective ability to deliver the Paris Agreement depends on achieving a just energy transition. And yet, the impact of exponential extraction of the minerals underpinning the transition to renewable energy remains a major blind spot in international climate negotiations,” said the document signed by more than 150 civil society organisations, including Climate Action Network International, Resource Justice Network and Natural Resource Governance Institute.
The conversation on transition minerals has always taken place on the sidelines of the world’s most important climate conference, but it is only last year that it became part of the official negotiation agenda for the first time, said Anabella Rosemberg, senior adviser on just transition at Climate Action Network International at a virtual press briefing held on 13 October.
It was at COP29 when a diverse expert panel released a report that United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres described as one that identified “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.”
The report’s recommendations included a global transparency network to trace minerals supply chains as well as empower artisanal and small-scale miners to become environmental and human rights advocates.
Civil society representatives call for equity in mineral value chains at COP30. Clockwise, Gabriel Flores from Natural Resource Governance Institute, Anabella Rosemberg from Climate Action Network International, Ibrahima Aidara from Natural Resource Governance Institute and Angela Asuncion from Resource Justice Network. Image: NRGI
Support has been growing for just transition talks to include critical minerals since then. A pre-COP meeting in June marked the first time that parties were able to produce a draft decision for the proposed Belém Action Mechanism for a Just Transition, a UNFCCC framework designed to advance a just transition within and between countries. The mechanism will detail how governments and the private sector can put people at the centre of national and sectoral transitions, including creating jobs and training of workers. NGOs expect that at COP30, a decision will be made on the framework.
The informal consultations were followed by calls for socioeconomic protection of workers, including those in the mining industry at the Fourth Dialogue under the Just Transition Work Programme in Addis Ababa in September. Days after, at the African Climate Summit, heads of state announced a blueprint to ensure that cobalt, lithium, copper and rare earths fuel not only global clean energy supply chains but also local beneficiation, job creation and industrialisation.
“The report on transition minerals was released at COP29 because of its importance and connection to delivering the outcomes of the global stocktake and building renewables and advancing on energy efficiency,” said Climate Action Network International’s Rosemberg.
“It has also been talked about because in the past couple of years, we have seen the development of the just transition work programme which is a space which society has been putting a lot of effort so that we have at the COP a much stronger conversation about how we do ambitious climate action,” she added.
Asia Pacific’s mining sector poses gravest threats
Asia Pacific is particularly vulnerable to the environmental and human rights impacts of transition minerals, as it hosts some of the world’s largest mineral reserves necessary to transition to and decarbonise globally, said Angela Asuncion, coordinator for Asia Pacific of the Transition Mineral Accountability Working Group for Resource Justice Network.
The region produces 54.6 per cent of nickel and remains close to a third of the global mineral resources, including 60 per cent of the world’s reserves of rare earth metals. Indonesia houses almost a quarter of the world’s nickel reserves, followed closely by the Philippines, while Vietnam and Myanmar possess between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the world’s rare earth elements.
But the region accounted for 15 per cent of critical minerals-related human rights abuse allegations recorded globally, according to a Business and Human Rights study released this year.
“Most of the world’s transition minerals are found in corruption-prone jurisdictions, including large deposits and nickel and rare earths located in Asia Pacific nations such as the Philippines and Indonesia,” Asuncion said in the same briefing. “Minerals underpin the shift to renewables, but corruption and corporate impunity in the mining sector risks reproducing the same colonial extractivist models of injustice under the banner of climate action.”
Indonesia has reported the fourthmost human rights violations in the world, with 45 claims recorded from 2010 to 2024. The Philippines recorded nine cases of human rights violations during the same period, recognised as amongst the deadliest places in the world to be a land defender in Asia since 2012, with the mining sector being the most dangerous. In 2022, 11 environmental defenders were killed in the Philippines.
Asuncion added that Asia Pacific also plays a key role in driving the conversation for just transition in the critical minerals industry at this year’s talks as Australia bids to be the COP host next year. Australia recorded the second number of human rights allegations in Asia Pacific, with 31 cases. The country alone produces 52 per cent of the world’s lithium, used for as batteries for plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles.
“As we know that there’s strong potential for Australia to be hosting COP31 and so the Asia Pacific is a significant player, not only in this year’s climate delegations, but in next year’s as well,” she said. “We understand the pivotal role that we play to drive international norms and standards for transition mineral processing and battery technologies.”
