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
A first set of biodiversity plans filed by countries to reverse nature loss are “insufficient” to meet this decade’s global targets, including a landmark goal to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and marine ecosystems by 2030, a landmark UN report warned on Thursday.
The State of Biodiversity Action, put together by a panel of technical experts for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), was released in Yerevan, ahead of the COP17 nature talks starting on Monday in the Armenian capital.
Over the next two weeks, governments will for the first time take stock of progress towards the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) agreed in 2022 – a set of 23 targets also known as the “Paris Agreement for nature” – and will decide on policy guidelines for ramping up ambition before the 2030 deadline. The UN report will be the main basis for these negotiations.
At a press conference in Armenia, UN Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted that, while there has been some progress on the GBF, the “bad news” is that less than half of country plans are on track to meet its targets.
If current commitments are met by the end of the decade, only 26% of land ecosystems and 12% of marine ecosystems will be protected – falling “real short” of the 30% target agreed in Montreal in 2022, Guterres said. “The war on nature has not yet ended,” he added.
UN Environment chief Inger Andersen said the report “sets the tone for the focus, ambition and urgent action we need to deliver” in Armenia, including by reducing subsidies that harm nature and mobilising new finance for biodiversity. “All leaders and all negotiators must respond to these findings,” she emphasised.
Andersen added that climate change amplifies threats to biodiversity, which makes protection all the more important as global warming is now almost certain to rise above a key threshold. “Exceedence of 1.5C increases the likelihood of forest diebacks, phenological shifts, warming oceans that become more inhospitable to species, irreversible tipping points and so much more,” she said.
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Progress on land but ocean lags behind
The report shows that if countries meet all the biodiversity targets in their plans, this would protect about 27% of the world’s land and sea by 2030, a fivefold increase in the span of ten years.
Progress has been uneven, with most conservation efforts focused on terrestrial ecosystems. The report suggests that currently about 19% of land ecosystems are protected, up two percentage points from 2020, which UN authorities welcomed but said is not a fast enough pace.
However, the real gap is at sea, where only about 10% of the global ocean has some sort of protection. Coastal areas under national jurisdiction have done better, as currently 23% of this marine territory is protected, but the report shows most of the deep ocean is not.
Brian O’Donnell, director of Campaign for Nature, an advocacy group, said the new High Seas Treaty – which entered into force this year and will allow for the creation of Marine Protected Areas in the deep ocean – represents an opportunity, as only about 1.5% is under protection so far.
A group of environmental NGOs including WWF and Bloomberg Philanthropies has issued a call for governments to scale up ocean conservation and to designate $16 billion annually for marine protection measures, up from $1.8bn now.
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Some countries did not set a conservation target at all for both land and sea, the report says, blaming technical challenges like how to account for overlapping protected areas, difficulty recognising protections for private land and land-accounting methodologies changing over time.
A separate report by Campaign for Nature suggests that the 30×30 goal could still be met with “increased ambition and commitment”, and says that around 50 countries have already protected about 30% of their land.
A group of environmental NGOs has warned that, beyond the 30% headline figure, protected areas need to be “high integrity” and recognise the stewardship of local communities and Indigenous peoples.
Developing countries call for finance
Rich countries will arrive at COP17 with shrinking aid budgets and geopolitical preoccupations – yet they will likely hear the same plea they’ve heard for the past few years: stepping up commitments will require finance.
A submission by African countries in August said the “implementation gap” has at its core a shortfall in the provision of funds, and that bridging it will require predictable and accessible finance.
Pacific island nations launched a similar call, arguing there is “a treaty obligation” that developing countries, including themselves, will effectively implement commitments depending on the finance and technology made available by developed nations.
To close this gap, the EU made a proposal at preliminary talks in Nairobi in August to expand the base of donors so that richer developing countries could voluntarily assume donor responsibilities. Saudi Arabia and Qatar rejected the idea, while China said this should not weaken the responsibility of developed nations.
Pre-COP draws attention to Pacific’s climate plight and 1.5C goal
So far, wealthy governments have missed a target to provide $20bn per year in international public finance for nature protection by 2025, reaching only about $16bn per year from 2023 to 2025, according to an OECD report. By 2030, the GBF aims for developed countries to directly transfer $30bn per year, and mobilise $200bn from all sources.
The UN report released on Thursday shows even slower progress in redirecting harmful subsidies such as those which encourage the overuse of fertilisers and the production and consumption of new fossil fuels, and below-market fees that encourage overfishing. UN Environment estimates that for every dollar spent protecting nature, $30 goes on destroying it.
UN biodiversity chief Astrid Schomaker told journalists in Yerevan that “if you hear there is no finance, please do not believe it” because economies are continuing to grow. “It is being spent on activities that harm the economy rather than those that work with nature and sustain life on this planet,” she said.
Guterres said developed countries tend to say they are grappling with budget constraints due to increased defence expenditure, which “in my view does not justify a reduction” in international aid. He added that existing resources can be multiplied if they are used to mobilise private capital.
Campaigners, companies and the Armenian government want to shift the needle on this situation at COP17 by highlighting how positive subsidies help restore biodiversity. They will launch a flagship call to action that will be taken forward by countries and groups working to reform damaging incentives.
Global review: the main act
The Global Review of Collective Progress – a bit like the Global Stocktake for climate action – is set to be the most important outcome from COP17, and it will be the first time this process unfolds at the biodiversity talks. The actions decided in Yerevan will respond to the gaps outlined in the State of Biodiversity Action report and determine whether countries can turn the tide of biodiversity loss this decade.
Overall, the report shows that while countries have taken action to address all 23 targets in the GBF, none “present a fully positive picture”. A target to strengthen the resilience of ecosystems to climate impacts is the only one with high relative progress, the report says, as government have already made effective interventions that show “a positive trend”.
The report assessed each country’s national targets, which define their contribution to the global goals, as well as their separate National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs) outlining how they will achieve the national targets.
But it does not paint a complete picture, since at the cut-off date, only 89 NBSAPs and national targets from 162 countries had been submitted, leaving out a couple of dozen plans that arrived late. Pacific island nations said this might undercount commitments.
Many of those lacking an NBSAP are biodiversity-rich developing countries, which say they need financial and technical support to fully develop these plans. Some large nations pending an NBSAP include South Africa, Bolivia and Russia.
Since the GBF was agreed in 2022, governments have mostly focused on developing their biodiversity targets and plans, while the lion’s share of implementation is expected to happen towards the end of the decade, according to UN biodiversity chief Schomaker.
But O’Donnell said “accelerated political ambition” is still needed to improve commitments and translate them into effective protection on the ground or at sea.
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Countries urged to ramp up “insufficient” nature policies at COP17