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The United Nations has initiated a panel to ensure fair access to minerals vital for energy transitions, co-chaired by Ambassador Nozipho Joyce Mxakato-Diseko of South Africa and Director-General for Energy Ditte Juul Jørgensen of the European Commission. Secretary-General António Guterres aims to address global mineral challenges with principles promoting environmental and social standards, emphasizing justice in the energy shift.

“A world powered by renewables is a world hungry for critical minerals,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said at the launch of the Panel. “For developing countries, critical minerals are a critical opportunity -- to create jobs, diversify economies, and dramatically boost revenues. But only if they are managed properly. The race to net zero cannot trample over the poor. The renewables revolution is happening – but we must guide it towards justice.”

“In establishing the Panel, the UN Secretary-General is commendably responding to a normative gap identified by many countries, especially developing countries, related to critical minerals and rare earths required for sustainable development and just transitions,” Ambassador MxakatoDiseko said. “The objective of the Panel, aligned to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the United Nations Framework Agreement on Climate Change and its Paris Agreement, is to build trust and certainty towards harnessing the potential of these minerals to be utilized to unlock shared prosperity, leaving no one and no place behind”.

Director-General for Energy Ditte Juul Jørgensen said, “the global energy goals we all agreed at COP28 require a rapid scale-up in the manufacturing and deployment of renewables globally and critical energy transition minerals. I am honored to have been asked by the UN Secretary-General to co-chair this panel and help develop principles to ensure a fair and transparent approach globally and for local communities in the entire value chain, – upholding the highest sustainability and human development standards.”

Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, crucial to mitigate severe climate impacts, hinges on ensuring an ample, reliable, and affordable supply of critical energy transition minerals. These minerals—like copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and rare earth elements—are indispensable for clean energy technologies such as wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, and battery storage.

During COP28, governments committed to tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030. Achieving this target necessitates a substantial increase in the supply of critical minerals. According to the International Energy Agency, demand for these minerals in clean energy applications is projected to surge threefold by 2030 on the path to achieving global net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Developing countries endowed with significant reserves of these minerals have a unique opportunity to diversify their economies, create green jobs, and promote sustainable local development. However, mineral resource exploitation has often fallen short of these promises. Without effective management, heightened demand for these minerals could perpetuate commodity dependency, exacerbate geopolitical tensions, and pose environmental and social challenges that undermine sustainable development, impacting livelihoods, health, human security, and rights.