Argentine lawmakers are set to vote this week on government proposals to weaken a landmark law that bans mining on and around glaciers, days after President Javier Milei’s libertarian administration signed a critical minerals supply deal with the US.
Milei will ask Congress to amend 2010 legislation known as the glaciers law – hailed as the first of its kind in the world – which prohibits activities such as mining or oil drilling on the nearly 17,000 glaciers and surrounding periglacial areas that supply water to millions of Argentines and the vital agricultural sector.
While glaciers account for less than 1% of Argentina’s vast territory, they overlap with large mineral deposits, especially copper, a critical mineral which is in hot demand for use in renewable energy systems, power grid infrastructure and batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).
Soaring demand for the red metal is driving a supply shortage that could reach 30% by 2035, according to the International Energy Agency.
Argentina, already a leading global lithium exporter, does not produce copper at present, but several major projects – on hold for years – could go ahead if Milei’s glacier law overhaul is approved by Congress, environmental campaigners and mining advocates say.
The nation’s mining exports reached $6.04 billion in 2025, according to the government.
Mineral-rich provinces would define protected areas
Milei says his bid to amend the glacier law is a way to give greater autonomy to the provinces by allowing them to decide exactly which glacial areas should be protected and off-limits for mining due to their role in water systems, and which should lose that status. Provincial authorities would then be allowed to grant mining permits in periglacial areas.
The amendment comes as part of a wider push by Milei – a close ideological ally of US President Donald Trump – to draw investment to the country, and the legislative overhaul is backed by mining companies and governors in the nation’s biggest mining provinces such as San Juan, Salta, Jujuy and Mendoza.
“This bill we are sending to Congress will bring investments that could create one million jobs,” Milei said of his plan to overhaul the glaciers law in November, adding that “environmentalists would prefer people to die of hunger before touching anything”.
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Earlier this month, Milei’s administration signed a critical minerals deal with the US to strengthen and secure supply chains, saying the accord was expected to drive significant economic growth and new investment.
But many environmental scientists in Argentina say the government’s proposal puts business interests before safeguards vital to protecting the nation’s water supplies at a time when climate change is taking a heavy toll on glacial areas.
“There is a clear intention among those pushing for these modifications to portray the current protection of the periglacial environment, or glacial waste rock, as a legal exaggeration, minimising the importance of these areas within the glaciers themselves and the ecosystem services they provide,” Guillermo Folguera, an environmental researcher from Argentina’s National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), told Climate Home News.
Some mining experts say regulators could protect water supplies by establishing technical criteria – such as the ice content of periglacial areas.
Copper projects on ice – for now
By opening a door to mining on areas that are currently protected, Milei’s plan could clear the way for at least four large copper projects that have been on hold since the glaciers law was passed 15 years ago, said FARN, an Argentine NGO focused on environmental issues and natural resources.
“Today, some projects violate the glaciers law and that, with this regulatory change, could potentially begin operating,” Leandro Gómez, environmental policy coordinator at FARN, told Climate Home News.
Giant copper mining projects that could be revived if the overhaul passes Congress include El Pachón and Agua Rica, both of which are owned by Swiss miner and commodities trader Glencore, according to FARN, which along with 26 other environmental organisations published a document rejecting the government’s proposal.
Last year, Glencore said it planned to spend $4 billion to develop Agua Rica and $9.5 billion to develop El Pachón.
The other two copper projects that FARN says could get the go-ahead if Milei’s amendments are passed are Los Azules and Josemaria in San Juan province.
All four projects are located in areas classified as periglacial zones with rock glaciers, according to surveys by IANIGLIA, the national agency responsible for conducting inventories of such areas.
Asked to comment on its Agua Rica project, now called MARA, Glencore said in a statement the site was not located on a rock glacier.
“There is no rock glacier located in the footprint of the MARA project; neither in any current works nor within the foreseen area of future operations,” it said, adding that water management was a key element of the project’s design.
“We have been developing a system designed to minimise or mitigate impacts on the local communities or the environment,” it said.
Milei is confident of congressional approval
Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party gained ground in Congress following a midterm election in October, and he voiced confidence in January about having enough votes to pass his glacier law proposal.
Last week, José Peluc, a deputy for San Juan from La Libertad Avanza, was designated head of the lower house’s environment commission in a signal of support for the amendment, though some opposition lawmakers have condemned Milei’s plan.
Lawmaker Maximiliano Ferraro from the centrist Civic Coalition told Congress in a recent debate that the proposal “is in clear violation” of the country’s constitution and Latin America’s 2018 Escazu Agreement on environmental rights.
The amendment, like other government measures aimed at boosting big mining projects such as the Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI), is supported by the CAEM chamber that groups Argentina’s major mining companies. It has also said the change would help revive deadlocked copper projects.
“Seventy-five percent of the surface area of the copper projects that were announced need clarification of the law because they are in areas considered periglacial,” Roberto Cacciola, CAEM president, told La Nación newspaper.
“Most have already started the application to enter the Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI),” he said.
“Irreparable consequences” feared near copper project
In the small town of Andalgalá in Catamarca province, which lies about 17 kilometres from the Agua Rica project, anti-mining activists have been holding weekly marches against the mine’s development since 2010 and they describe heavy-handed police tactics aimed at stifling their protests.
They are dismayed by the government’s attempt to water down the glaciers law, fearing that allowing the mine to operate would endanger the town’s water supplies from the Andalgalá River.
“Starting up Agua Rica would mean large-scale environmental destruction,” said Juan José Cólica, an agricultural engineer who worked for 35 years, until his retirement last year, at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology’s Andalgalá office.
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Glencore said it was working to complete the exploitation phase environmental impact report (EIR) for the project, which would be subjected to a technical review by the regulatory authority and public consultation.
“We engage with our host communities to understand and address their concerns, including in respect of economic and social development opportunities for the region,” the company said.
Cólica said allowing the mine to operate at the foot of the snow-capped Aconquija mountain would cause “irreparable consequences that could last for generations”.
“There is no technical method or technology to remedy the damage that could be caused, nor to safeguard the population of Andalgalá from the geological, hydrological, environmental and health risks,” he said.
The post Argentina’s pioneering glacier law on the line as Milei bets on copper rush appeared first on Climate Home News.
Argentina’s pioneering glacier law on the line as Milei bets on copper rush
June Rubis is a steering group committee member for the Cali Fund, from Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo.
At COP16 in Cali, governments made a significant commitment: at least half of the funding from the new Cali Fund should support the self-identified needs of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, including women and youth. It was a watershed moment for multilateral benefit-sharing.
The challenge now is to translate that commitment into access arrangements that recognise the different institutions, priorities and decision-making processes of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
For generations, biodiversity and traditional Indigenous knowledge have provided significant value to companies who depend on nature’s genetic diversity to discover new drugs that fight diseases, create products that improve health, and grow crops resilient to extreme heat and flooding events. While some compounds are sampled directly from the source country, increasingly the digital blueprints are held in online public databases which are freely accessible to use for innovation and research.
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The Cali Fund was established at COP16 to encourage commercial users of Digital Sequence Information, or DSI, to share benefits arising from its use. Estimates suggest it could generate over $3.5 billion a year – a stark contrast to the modest $10,656 currently committed to the fund from just five SMEs, underlining how much progress must be made at COP17 over the next two weeks.
The COP16 decision that set up the fund offers two routes for money to reach Indigenous Peoples and local communities: through government authorities, and through direct payments to institutions identified by Indigenous Peoples and local communities themselves.
Varied ways of organising
Indigenous Peoples and local communities organise through a wide range of institutions. Some have national or regional organisations experienced in managing international grants. Others work through territorial organisations, customary institutions, community associations, cooperatives or networks. Some have professional finance teams and audited accounts; others have extensive experience governing territories, collective resources or conservation work without having been organised around international funding requirements.
For direct access, some questions are already apparent. Which institutions should be able to receive funds? How should they be identified? What fiduciary standards should apply? How should safeguards and accountability work where institutional capacities differ? What support may be needed where institutions have strong community mandates but less experience with international finance?
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If access is designed mainly around institutions that already meet the expectations of large international finance mechanisms, early funding will tend to favour those already familiar to funders. They will gain further experience and become better positioned for future funding, while institutions with less administrative capacity may remain outside the system despite strong community mandates and long histories of stewardship.
These first decisions matter most, because they set the terms for everyone who follows.
The role of intermediaries requires care. Some Indigenous organisations may want a fiscal host to hold and manage funds on their behalf. Communities may choose to work through an NGO they trust. Government-facilitated arrangements may work well in particular national contexts.
What matters is the function an intermediary performs and the authority that comes with it. Providing administrative support is different from deciding which Indigenous organisations qualify, which priorities can receive support, or how success will be assessed. Direct access means communities keep that decision-making authority.
Decision-making power
The COP16 decision refers to institutions that Indigenous Peoples and local communities identify. But authority among Indigenous Peoples does not sit in one kind of body. It may sit with territorial organisations, customary institutions, community associations or combinations of these. Legal recognition and customary authority do not always align neatly.
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An important feature of the Cali Fund’s governance is that Indigenous Peoples and local communities participate as full members of the Steering Committee, rather than as observers. Seven Indigenous Peoples and local community representatives, one from each of the seven socio-cultural regions, participate in consensus-based decision-making alongside representatives of governments and UN entities. Six additional representatives from civil society, scientific institutions and the private sector participate as observers.
That representation carries responsibility. Institutional legitimacy, access and representation take different forms across the seven socio-cultural regions. Indigenous Peoples and local communities members therefore have an important role in bringing those differences into the Fund’s governance and in ensuring that arrangements developed for one context do not become the assumed model for everyone else.
Safeguards and clear responsibilities
COP17 can establish the core principles and direction, while allowing operational pathways to develop in ways that respond to different regional contexts. The decisions countries take in Yerevan will shape how that flexibility is realised in practice.
The choices made around access will influence which institutions are able to participate, which routes become established and which forms of authority are recognised within the funding architecture. The aim should be an architecture with enough structure to maintain confidence while allowing for different forms of Indigenous and community governance.
A credible direct-access pathway will need safeguards, financial oversight and clear responsibilities. This would give the 50% commitment a stronger institutional foundation.
The Cali Fund’s importance will ultimately depend not only on how much funding reaches Indigenous Peoples and local communities, but on whether they are able to determine how the money is accessed, governed and used. This requires access pathways that recognise their institutions, priorities and decision-making processes, rather than requiring them to conform to a single predetermined model.
The post COP17 must settle who decides how Cali Fund money is disbursed appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP17 must settle who decides how Cali Fund money is disbursed
The UK government has approved extraction at the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea, despite acknowledging that this decision could make it harder for Britain to convince other countries to move away from fossil fuel production.
UK energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh approved the drilling on Wednesday after months of high-profile debate, fuelled in part by interventions from US President Donald Trump. She argued that the project would boost energy security in the wake of the Middle East fossil fuel crisis, protect hundreds of jobs and add £2.9 billion ($3.88bn) to the UK economy.
She said Jackdaw’s gas would be cleaner than imported gas and would not prevent the UK from meeting its legally-binding carbon targets and its goal of net zero by 2050. As the field is already licensed, she said extraction was consistent with the Labour Party’s 2024 manifesto promise not to issue any new oil and gas licenses.
The same morning, the government announced a new Energy Wealth Fund to reinvest oil and gas revenues in the climate transition. It will start with £2 billion ($2.67bn) from the government and be topped up over time with tax revenues from offshore oil and gas production.
Climate campaigners in the UK and abroad were quick to condemn the decision, while a leading legal expert told Climate Home News it goes against the advice of the International Court of Justice. Meanwhile, the government’s own documents reveal that it recognises the drilling could damage the UK’s reputation and its ability to push forward the global transition away from fossil fuels.
“Climate leadership” blow
The 92-page decision document says Fahnbulleh “acknowledges that international standing on climate is important and accepts that a decision to grant consent may not further the UK’s international climate leadership.”
It adds: “She acknowledges concerns about the potential implications for the UK’s credibility and influence – including the difficulty inherent in encouraging other states to move away from fossil fuel production while the UK continues, in a limited and transitional way, to draw on its own domestic resources.”
While noting that Jackdaw has not been issued with a new license – just permission to extract gas – the document says Fahnbulleh “accepts this does not fully resolve the underlying tension in the UK’s position” but “considers this alongside the substance of the UK’s wider record [on emissions reduction], which remains significant”.
It continues that she accepts these concerns are “legitimate” and weigh against approving gas extraction, but only gives this argument a “moderate negative weight” set against the benefits of gas production.
“Huge” wrong signal
In international climate talks, the UK has long supported the transition away from fossil fuels and is one of very few major oil and gas producers to ban new licenses. Across the North Sea, the Norwegian government continues to make offshore areas available for oil and gas exploration through annual licensing rounds.
Climate experts and campaigners shared the concern, acknowledged in the decision document, that approving Jackdaw could set a precedent for fossil fuel production elsewhere. Sam Fankhauser, professor of climate change economics at Oxford University, said the direct climate impact of Jackdaw is “much smaller than the debate around it would suggest” but the “wrong signal it sends, however, is huge”.
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