Mining companies are repeating past human rights violations and harmful policies to extract the minerals the world needs to build modern technologies and transition to clean energy, Elisa Morgera, UN special rapporteur on climate change and human rights, told a London Climate Action Week event.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
There are growing efforts to ensure that the sector respects human rights and contributes to – rather than undermines – a just and rapid energy transition, experts said at the panel discussion hosted by Climate Home News and the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre this week.
Approaches include urging governments to implement more robust regulations and enforcing them, tracing minerals transparently from the ground to their end product, engaging with local communities while projects are still being designed, and plugging a funding gap for emerging solutions to the mining sector’s sustainability challenges.
In many cases, the extraction of minerals such as cobalt, copper, lithium and nickel – essential for manufacturing batteries, electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines to decarbonise economies, among other applications – is leading to deforestation, human rights violations and social conflicts, which risk slowing down the energy transition at a time when the world needs to speed it up.
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These problems are “not new”, Morgera told the event in London.
“Unfortunately, it’s the same textbook that we’ve seen in logging, in other extractive activities and in many neo-colonial processes,” she said, citing tick-box consultation processes, the absence of accessible information about projects and the promise of benefits to powerful people within communities. As a result, local people are often left divided and deprived of their rights.
“We all need to be fully aware and document everything that we know goes wrong… to not repeat mistakes that are preventable” – and avoid adding to the burden on communities which “in some cases have experienced generations of the same kind of [rights] violations”, she added.
Morgera said that addressing these issues requires states, mining companies, investors and financiers to create meaningful practices of co-development, co-ownership and mutual learning with those on the ground affected by minerals extraction. She called for a “more proactive” approach to helping local communities and Indigenous peoples participate in shaping projects much earlier in the process.
Andi Muttaqien, executive director of Indonesian NGO Satya Bumi, warned there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to designing community engagement and benefit-sharing mechanisms, but these should be designed on a case-by-case basis.
In some instances, biodiversity-rich and culturally sensitive areas should be protected from mining, he said, citing the case of the small Indonesian island of Kabaena, where large-scale nickel mining has polluted the water and affected the indigenous Bajau People’s traditional way of life.
Better transparency along the supply chain should ensure that electric automakers and consumers can find out where the minerals used in their products are sourced, he added.
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Estelle Levin-Nally of the Global Investor Commission on Mining 2030, which seeks to define a vision for a socially and environmentally responsible mining sector by 2030 and the role of finance in realising it, said investors have a key role to play in ensuring due diligence earlier in the planning of a mining project.
That is important because environmental and social impact assessments often fail to put in place robust safeguards in time to prevent harm, she said.
“The key moment is at the point of contracting,” she told the event. “That’s when [investors] can use their leverage [to push] for a higher human rights and environment performance by the miner.”
Investors should also put their money into scaling sustainability solutions along supply chains, such as data management and cleaner mining technologies, where there is a “a big funding gap”, she said.
“I want to see more investors ‘man up’ and go into the hard stuff, be part of that transformation and act as that enabling partner, because we as a society need them to do that,” she added.
Cecilia Mattea, of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), a voluntary mining standard governed equally by the private sector, local communities, civil society and workers, argued that holding the sector accountable requires stronger government laws and regulations.
She acknowledged that voluntary standards alone “are not enough”. “But if governments are not doing enough… then there is a role for voluntary standards to help drive the change and showcase what’s possible,” she said, adding that a responsible mine currently “doesn’t exist”.
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IRMA is currently working with more than 100 companies that are willing to have their mining sites undergo third-party assessment against the standard, with most coming forward following pressure from downstream buyers and NGOs, she said.
Phil Bloomer, executive director of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, agreed that better regulation is needed, as in Canada and New Zealand.
Here, “bad companies change their practice where they face massive legal risks and massive costs in terms of fines” while the level regulatory playing field prevents companies with good practices from “being undercut by polluting and abusive competitors”, he said.
“Rushing… to extract transition minerals without learning the lessons from the past and without addressing the inequality of power and wealth that exists in those businesses will not solve our climate crisis,” he added. “To the contrary, it will slow down the transition and it will backfire upon us. There is a better way – and one that can contribute to the objectives of a just and rapid global energy transition.”
