Unless you’re studying for a high school science exam, lithium, nickel, copper, and cobalt probably won’t carry much meaning beyond being elements on the periodic table. But if there is a time to pull out those dusty science books, it would be now.
Across various sectors, these minerals are of increasing importance, including – perhaps most prominently – renewable energy generation and storage, and electric vehicles; but also other large and growing sectors such as military and AI (e.g., for datacenters). And around the world, many governments and companies are competing to control who can dig them up.
The global minerals rush
These raw Earth materials are often called “critical minerals” by governments and the mining industry, typically a reflection of national political priorities rather than essential societal or energy transition needs. This risks turning these minerals into the focus of a new neo-colonial resource grab, with powerful countries and corporations racing to control them, and wasting their potential to power a fair and green transition.
Globally – from Chile, Argentina, DRC, Indonesia, Sweden to the deep sea – the extractivist rush for minerals puts vital ecosystems, peoples’ rights and the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples and local communities at risk. The geopolitical scramble over minerals has also been linked to the current US government’s aggressive annexation threats to Greenland.
Minerals have different uses, and there are no guarantees that the minerals mined “in the name of energy transition” are used for wind turbines or energy storage. For example, big tech companies are consuming more and more of these minerals to expand AI infrastructure (such as datacenters). In addition to driving up energy demand and emissions, the vision of ‘progress’ advocated by big tech oligarchs also threatens to worsen extractive pressures on people and nature, and divert minerals away from energy transition. Moreover, mineral use in the expansion of AI-driven warfare systems has been found as a particularly concerning development.
In light of this, it is more important than ever to demand coordinated action to ensure that minerals are used where they matter most: principally, for a fast fair fossil fuel phase out and a transition to clean, affordable renewable energy and sustainable transport systems.
So how do we protect people and nature in the energy transition?
Reduce, recycle, restrict for a safeguarded energy transition
In a report commissioned by Greenpeace International, and authored by academics at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) in Australia, we’ve found that an ambitious energy transition can be achieved without mining in vital ecosystems – whether on land or at sea. With visionary leadership, sound policies, and innovative technologies, we can keep global warming within 1.5°C, safeguard vital ecosystems and reduce extractive pressures on people and nature.
Here’s five ways how:
1. Reduce mineral demand with improved public transport, car-sharing, and smaller, more efficient vehicles
Accessibility, efficiency, and reliability in how cities are governed make them great places to live in. Having improved public transport systems is one of the most effective ways to reduce the need for mineral-intensive electric vehicles and the batteries that power them. In addition to expanding high-quality public transport, employing car-sharing schemes, and investing in active mobility (e.g. walking and cycling infrastructure) would significantly decrease reliance on individual car ownership.
As an added bonus improving our public transport systems is essential not just for climate, but for connecting people to opportunities. Mobility justice is climate justice.
2. Incentivise and substitute battery technology towards alternatives requiring less lithium, cobalt, or nickel
Think about how many items you use that require batteries? Without it, our personal gadgets would be useless; we wouldn’t have advancement in items like electric cars or bikes; and batteries can also help store and use more eco-friendly sources of energy, such as solar and wind. But the production of large batteries is highly mineral-intensive.
Luckily, over the last decade, technological innovation has transformed the market. Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, now widely commercialised, eliminate the need for cobalt and nickel, reducing pressure on these supply chains. At the same time, sodium-ion (Na-ion) batteries are advancing rapidly, and offer a pathway to significantly reduce mineral demand for lithium, according to the report. It shows that, using innovative battery technologies and energy storage systems that do not require these key minerals would significantly reduce supply gaps for key minerals and ease potential development pressures for new mines targeting them.
3. Design for circularity and scale up recycling
We all know the drill by now – reduce, reuse, recycle. When it comes to transition minerals, this maxim is of key importance.
By maximising collection and the recovery of transition minerals from end-of-life transition technologies, recycling can significantly reduce the need for new extraction. Investing in advanced recycling technologies and collection systems, alongside policy incentives that reward high recycled mineral content in new products, ensures that transition minerals re-enter the supply chain.
Additional circularity measures like extending technologies’ lifespans, improving repairability, incentivising reuse, designing and standardising components for easy disassembly to help with repair and recycling, and enforcing extended producer responsibility (EPR), could also contribute to reducing overall mineral demands.
4. Prioritise mineral use for essential energy transition needs
Minerals are finite resources, and the practice of mining carries significant social, labour, and environmental risks. Therefore, the use of mineral resources should be prioritised where they matter most – in renewable energy and its storage and in electric mobility to enable a fast fair fossil fuel phase out.
Governments and industries must prioritise mineral use towards a fast, fair, and just energy transition. Coupled with supply chain transparency, prioritising minerals for energy transition ensures finite minerals are used to advance climate goals that benefit all people and the planet.
5. Protect key ‘Restricted Areas’ from mining development
Protecting human rights and ecological integrity is a non-negotiable foundation of a just and green transition. Restricted Areas have high environmental, ecological, and natural values, and may include Indigenous Peoples and local community territories. Defining and protecting these Restricted Areas is a crucial step to ensuring that mining of transition minerals respects the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to their territories, and does not destroy biodiversity, critical natural ecosystems, natural carbon storage, freshwater systems and oceans.
After all, what is “critical” here is not a minerals scramble largely driven by geopolitical rivalry. Neither the AI race, nor the power and profit chased by States and corporations.
Critical are the ecosystems that all living beings on the planet depend on.
Critical are the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
Critical is meeting peoples’ needs and ensuring that current and future generations can live in a safe climate.
For this, it’s essential for our world leaders to take courageous and coordinated action to protect people and the planet, and ensure our Earth’s minerals help create a green and just future, rather than being exploited for short-term profit.
Author: Elsa Lee is the Co-Head of Biodiversity at Greenpeace International
The extraction of minerals needed for the clean energy transition is projected to expand globally in coming years, presenting multiple risks to ecosystems and Indigenous Peoples, necessitating strong global guidelines.
But what are these minerals, what role do they play in our efforts to combat climate change, and how can we source and use them in an environmentally sustainable way? Let’s take a look!
So, what are these key minerals?
Renewable energy and electric vehicle (EV) technologies will play an important role in combating climate change. These technologies rely on key raw materials, such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese, graphite and rare earth elements.
These materials are often referred to as ‘critical minerals’ due to their perceived significance for national interests or ‘transition minerals’ due to their importance in the clean energy transition.
Where are they found?
While these minerals are found globally, some countries have greater reserves than others, based on geology and the economic feasibility of their extraction. The countries listed below have the highest reserves, listed from first to third.
- Lithium: Chile, Australia, Argentina
- Cobalt: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Australia, Indonesia
- Nickel: Indonesia, Australia, Brazil
- Copper: Chile, Peru, Australia
How is mining these minerals a risk to people and the environment?
There are multiple impacts from mining minerals that are considered critical. Here are a few of them:
- In South America, mining for lithium uses millions of litres of water in and around the drought-prone Andes region, impacting Indigenous Peoples in the area.
- Small scale cobalt mining facilities in the DRC can lack safety measures, leading to fatalities, accidents and serious health issues.
- Nickel mining and processing in Indonesia is causing deforestation and coastal water pollution, in addition to Indigenous and labour rights violations and corruption.
- Global copper mining leads to mining waste in tailings dams which need to be managed carefully to avoid disasters and pollution.
So what can we do?
Some studies projecting massive increases to the demand for transition minerals in coming years are used to justify more mining. However, embracing less mineral-intensive solutions can reduce the need for mining, while still ensuring renewable energy growth.
We need to pressure governments and industries to adopt policies, practices and solutions that reduce demand while also minimising mining’s impacts.
These changes require ambition to go beyond climate action, focusing investment toward less mineral-intensive solutions like EV public transportation, advancing technology to use fewer minerals more efficiently, and expanding reuse and recycling.
What are the solutions to reduce the need for mining?
Given the problems associated with the extraction and use of transition minerals, it is important to remember four key solutions that will help limit the need for mining. They are:
- Sufficiency – prioritise a decent living standard for all while reducing the total energy and material needed across the economy,
- Efficiency – investments to help technologies do the same or better with less materials
- Substitution – remove or reduce the need for certain minerals in products by using different types of technology or energy solutions,
- Recycling – can significantly reduce environmental and social impacts compared to mining, and therefore should be maximised.
Five guiding principles on minerals for energy transition
Greenpeace has developed five key principles essential for ensuring a just and equitable energy transition that can be adapted into local contexts.
- The 1.5°C Guiding Star: We must achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to no more than 1.5°C. Any use of minerals must be prioritised for a fast and green energy transition above non-essential uses, such as for military purposes.
- Just and Equitable Solutions: Justice and equity for people and the environment must be embedded in every aspect of using and sourcing materials from reducing mineral demand, to recycling and mining.
- Reduce Demand: Slowing mineral demand by adopting the concepts of sufficiency (ie. reducing the need for resources) and efficiency (ie. enhancing the effectiveness of resource use).
- Prioritise ‘Above Ground’ Materials: Recycling can significantly reduce environmental and social impacts compared to mining. Potential sources include spent batteries, production waste, household e-waste and industrial scrap piles.
- Protect Sensitive Areas and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: While there are many initiatives pushing for improved mining practices, the industry continues to pose serious risks to people and the environment. Three requirements are proposed:
- 5.1 Protect ‘No-Go’ zones, areas where mining should not occur
- 5.2 Respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities
- 5.3 Companies must act responsibly, preventing and mitigating environmental damage and impacts, and respecting human rights.
Irène Wabiwa is a Biodiversity Programme Manager at Greenpeace International
Read our reports:
Minerals for Energy Transition: Greenpeace’s Guiding Principles
Batteries in Transition: Innovation, Uncertainty, and the Minerals Behind Them
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