Mountain guide Eduardo Mostazo was born and raised in Cáceres, a small city in southwest Spain close to Portugal, which has suffered a rural exodus. Now it faces a new threat: a proposed lithium mine which Mostazo and other local activists fear could contaminate water sources and the nearby mountain, threatening birds such as the endangered Spanish imperial eagle.
Their struggle to protect the pristine environment highlights a growing challenge for Europe, as the continent races to start extracting and producing minerals like lithium that are critical to the clean energy transition, instead of relying on imports from China and other emerging economies.
Yet, while bureaucrats in European capitals are under pressure to secure supplies on their soil, communities where the resources are located question whether they will benefit from their exploitation.
They told Climate Home they need more information before agreeing to host mining projects on which they feel they have not been adequately consulted, and want stronger guarantees that the rush for minerals won’t harm the nature on which local livelihoods depend.
Explainer: Why the world is racing to mine critical minerals
In Cáceres, mining company Extremadura New Energies (ENE) – a subsidiary of Australian Infinity Lithium – has promised to create 1,500 jobs during the mine’s construction and 700 jobs during 26 years of operation.
Nonetheless, locals worry that a mine could damage today’s economic mainstays of tourism and agriculture. “There is no talk of alternatives,” said Mostazo. “When a proposal comes from a big company with lots of millions, there’s the impression that the politicians don’t really investigate [the impacts], they go blind with the promise.”
Breaking Europe’s mineral dependence
As part of its efforts to boost clean energy and electrification, the European Commission wants to shrink its dependence on Chinese-produced minerals by ensuring that at least 10% of critical raw materials such as lithium, copper and nickel are extracted within Europe by 2030.
The International Energy Agency estimates that global demand for lithium – a key component in electric car batteries – could increase by up to 42 times by 2040 from 2020 levels. Currently, the EU imports four-fifths of its extracted lithium and 100% of its processed lithium.
Santos Barrios, professor of crystallography and mineralogy at the University of Salamanca, said Europe’s mineral dependency “is a very big problem” because those materials come from countries that often lack social and environmental protection.
“They import it from other places where it is much cheaper to extract it than here, but at the cost of losing many things along the way,” he explained. The ideal situation, he added, would be to no longer rely “on countries that are not completely transparent, such as China”.
To speed up progress ahead of its 2030 deadline, in March the European Commission approved 47 strategic mining projects, which will benefit from fast-tracked permitting processes and easier access to EU funding.
Spain and Finland are the EU countries with the most strategic projects involving extraction or integrated extraction and processing of critical raw materials, with five projects each.
ENE applied but was not selected due to delays in the permitting process, with its request for a licence still sitting with the regional government, which has requested the company to submit more detailed information on the project.
Requests for project documents denied
Only 40 kilometres north, in Cañaveral, meanwhile, many locals were disappointed to learn that a nearby mining project led by the company Lithium Iberia had made the list.
A citizens’ group opposing the mine – worried about the potential impact on water sources and nature – is preparing a letter to the president of the European Parliament asking for access to the project documentation, including its environmental impact assessment and the methodology used to evaluate applications.
The European Commission has previously denied such requests, citing it as sensitive business information, said Julio César Pintos Cubo from the green group Ecologistas en Acción.
Others, such as Friends of the Earth Europe, have also argued that the strategic projects under the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act erode transparency and have failed to engage civil society, as neither the Commission nor EU member states have granted access to the documents submitted by the applicants.
“EU law must not be weakened to benefit poorly regulated companies – something that is unfortunately common in the mining sector – while the administration abandons transparency, water and environmental regulations, aligning itself with the mining lobby,” said Pintos.
A Commission spokesperson told Climate Home the strategic minerals projects had been assessed by independent experts, who were asked to evaluate – among other criteria – whether they can be “implemented sustainably”.
Lack of “democratic accountability” threatens success
Experts are warning that limited transparency and local participation in selection of the EU’s strategic projects could have negative impacts on their implementation.
“There will be opposition because the European Union is taking these decisions in Brussels following an accelerated procedure for new projects. There has been no deep consultation and there is a lot of pressure to achieve these objectives,” said Marco Siddi, a researcher with the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
The absence of “democratic accountability” around these high-stakes mining projects could provoke a social reaction similar to that of the yellow vests, Siddi warned, referring to the unrest that erupted in France in 2018 after the government tried to hike fuel prices as a green measure.
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The Commission spokesperson told Climate Home that each country’s authorities have the main responsibility for implementing these strategic projects, including carrying out consultations with local people “in accordance with national rules”.
Barrios, the researcher, said all opinions should be considered and environmental damage minimised, “but the last word has to be left to qualified personnel”.
The Extremadura government in Spain did not respond to a request for comment on whether and how communities had been consulted on the strategic project in Cañaveral.
Earlier Raquel Pastor, the region’s director general for industry, energy and mining, told Climate Home News that “projects of any kind that generate employment, wealth, and development in the region are welcomed, as long as they comply with all regulations, including environmental ones, of course, and with the law.”
Businesses aim to do no harm
The mining companies, for their part, have promised in most cases to minimise the impact of their operations on nature and contribute positively to rural development.
ENE’s CEO Ramón Jiménez Serrano told Climate Home that the Cáceres mine – which also plans to host a nearby processing plant – would only use treated wastewater and therefore would not impact local water supplies. Despite this, the company’s application for a permit with the local water authority was denied.
According to Steve Emerman, an independent geophysics and mining expert who has testified before the European Parliament on the issue, “there is no precedent for any modern, industrial mine that has been operated and closed without environmental contamination”.
On a cold and windy January afternoon, 150 kilometres north of Cáceres, 100 people from nearby villages – including the local priest – packed into the cultural centre in Ciudad Rodrigo, a town in the region of Salamanca, for a session on the impact of another proposed lithium mining project in the area.
This project, led by another Australian mining company, Energy Transitions Minerals, is still in its early stages, and is not on the EU’s list of strategic projects. But there is growing concern about how it could affect the region’s landscape and traditional jobs. According to the company, Salamanca is the European region with the highest concentration of critical raw materials, including lithium, copper and tantalum.
Increasingly, foreign-owned companies want to jump on Europe’s critical minerals bandwagon. Many are so-called junior mining companies that lack the financial and technical capacity to actually extract the materials from the ground, explained Emerman. “They just want to get the permit, then they will sell it to someone who can carry out the project,” he said.
Doubts over corporate sustainability plans
Locals fear this could be the case in Bosnia and Herzegovina, an EU candidate country where the lithium rush has reached the small northeastern town of Lopare. In 2023, the Swiss-owned junior mining company ARCORE AG announced it had struck “gold” in the densely forested area of rolling hills and rich lithium deposits, and is currently awaiting approval of a concession agreement from the Republika Srpska authorities, one of the country’s two governing units.
Environmental lawyer and activist Azra Berbić thinks it likely that another company with more resources and funding will purchase that agreement and carry out the lithium mining. ”We’ve seen this story before. This is why the local communities are so worried… they fear the agreement will be sold to a company like Rio Tinto,” she said.
So far the British-Australian conglomerate, one of the world’s largest mining companies, has shown no formal interest in Lopare. But Rio Tinto has faced a backlash over its environmental and labour practices around the world, including in neighbouring Serbia where its $2.4 billion investment in a proposed lithium mine in Jadar ignited mass protests in 2024.
Announcing that project in 2021, the company said it aimed to minimise the impact on communities by building the Jadar mine “to the highest environmental standards”, including dry stacking of tailings so they can be reclaimed without a dam and treating water so that 70% comes from recycled sources.
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In the case of Spain’s Cáceres, ENE has said it will use 100% renewable energy for its operations, although CEO Jiménez admitted that not all the above-ground machinery needed can yet run on electricity.
And in Salamanca, the regional government’s spokesman for energy transition minerals, Jorge Gil Mediavilla, told Climate Home that “although less money will be earned, the company has agreed to renounce open-cast mining in order to carry out small, highly concentrated underground mining operations”.
Yet, some experts are sceptical about the viability of the Salamanca project. “I doubt that it could be profitable,” said Antonio Areas, a veteran mining entrepreneur from the area, while geologist Antonio Aretxabala noted it would be the first underground lithium mine in the world.
Ángel Sánchez Corral, spokesman for local anti-mining platform El Rebollar Vivo in Salamanca, said many local communities remain unconvinced by the EU’s push for homegrown production of critical minerals and politicians’ promises of economic growth and jobs.
“The declaration of strategic projects by the EU is a step backwards in terms of environmental protection and social and territorial rights for the benefit of extractive and speculative companies – it makes us lose confidence in the EU institutions,” he said.
Reporting for this article was supported by the Magmatic School of Environmental Journalism.
The post Europe’s lithium rush leaves mineral-rich communities in the dark appeared first on Climate Home News.
Europe’s lithium rush leaves mineral-rich communities in the dark
The US is expected to resume its attempt to sink measures for a greener global shipping sector at closed-door talks between governments at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in early September.
The US and oil-producing allies like Saudi Arabia want to weaken a proposed plan for cleaner fuels that aims to reduce planet-heating emissions from the industry, which relies heavily on dirty bunker fuels. Shipping currently represents 3% of global emissions.
Those that want a softer system are likely to back a Liberian proposal which expert analysis suggests would see emissions fall by only half at most by 2050, far short of the sector’s agreed climate goals.
After several years of debate, governments provisionally agreed in April 2025 on the “Net Zero Framework” (NZF), a series of emissions reduction targets for shipowners, backed up with financial rewards for meeting the targets and fees for missing them.
But in October 2025, after a high-profile intervention from US President Donald Trump and threats of sanctions and visa restrictions, the US convinced a majority of voting nations to postpone the adoption of the NZF for a year.
Ralph Regenvanu, climate minister for the Pacific nation of Vanuatu, called the delay “unacceptable” given the urgency of accelerating climate change.
After a round of low-profile talks in May, the first of three further sets of talks on how to clean up shipping will begin at the IMO’s riverside headquarters in London on Tuesday, culminating in a final public session in November.
Em Fenton, who follows the talks as senior director of climate diplomacy at Opportunity Green, an NGO focused on aviation and shipping, said governments should not be sidetracked by alternative proposals to the NZF, calling them “a distraction from a hard-fought multilateral compromise”.
“If countries want to deliver a just and fair maritime transition, there is really only one choice: back the NZF and stand together in solidarity against those who would tear it apart,” Fenton added.
Five proposals on the table
Governments will discuss five different proposals submitted in advance of next week’s meeting. The most ambitious of these is from the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, which has proposed a levy on the entirety of a ship’s emissions rather than just those above a certain level, as the NZF envisions.
That had been the original demand of Pacific nations before the NZF was provisionally adopted in April 2025. At the time, Tuvalu’s transport minister Simon Kofe described the NZF as disappointing and not ambitious enough.
For this reason, six Pacific countries abstained in the vote on the NZF. While they supported the original plan for its adoption in October 2025, they have used the delay to push again for more ambition.
John Kautoke, advisor to a group of Pacific nations called 6PAC+, told Climate Home News that the NZF “cannot diminish its already inadequate ambition. If anything, the NZF must increase in ambition if we are going to renegotiate its parameters.”
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Analysis by the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST) suggests that, of the five proposals, only Tuvalu’s would meet the 2030 and 2040 emissions reduction targets for global shipping that were agreed by governments in 2023. Those were for cuts of 20% between 2008 and 2030, 70% by 2040 and then reaching net zero “by or around, i.e. close to 2050”.
Despite this, the UK, Australia, Canada and South Africa have formally proposed that governments adopt the NZF, which won support in a 63-13 vote among governments at the April 2025 talks. Trump’s US walked out halfway through.
According to IMarEst’s analysis, while the NZF proposal will not be enough to meet the industry’s targets, it will reduce emissions more cheaply than the Pacific proposal.
A proposal by Brazil – which fought hard for the NZF last October – suggests tweaking the framework to make meeting targets easier in the short term and harder in the long term.
While this compromise will make it more appealing to the owners of polluting ships and countries that support them, IMarEst estimates it would lead to higher cumulative emissions than either the NZF or Pacific proposals.
The NZF stipulates that fees for high-polluting shipowners should be be put into a Net Zero Fund and used to promote clean shipping fuels and a fairer transition. The Brazilian proposal would delay raising and spending these funds by two years, from 2029 to 2031.
Liberia’s proposal weakens emissions cuts
The US and Saudi Arabia are likely to swing behind a new proposal from Liberia, whose government makes millions of dollars a year selling the right for shipowners to register their vessels in the small West African nation via a US-based company.
This proposal would weaken the emissions reduction targets. IMarEst says it would cut the industry’s emissions at most by a half by 2050, falling far short of the target agreed in 2023 for international shipping to reach net zero “close to 2050”.
It would also replace the NZF’s fees for missing targets with a carbon trading system. As a result, there would be no Net Zero Fund and therefore less money available to incentivise green fuels and make the transition more equitable for poorer nations.
Pacific advisor Kautoke said that, as well as preventing shipping from reaching zero emissions by 2050, Liberia’s proposal would mean the Pacific “will not receive any support to deal with the disproportionately negative impacts created by the cost of the transition”.
“We get a double blow if we adopt the Liberian proposal,” he warned. “We get all the cost of a transition without any support, and we have an industry that continues to burn fossil fuels to an unforeseen point.”
Japanese proposal favours shipowners
Japan has submitted a late proposal to amend the NZF so that shipowners have more control over how the fees they would pay for emitting above a set threshold are spent.
University College London professor Tristan Smith has argued that this change means there will be no central mechanism to incentivise investments in clean fuels. He wrote on LinkedIn that under the system put forward by Japan, shipowners would be able to select which green projects their fees would go to. They could choose their own or those of a sister company or other shipowners, rather than funding broader just transition projects that would benefit marine workers or developing countries hit by rising shipping costs.
Despite its flaws, Smith added that Japan’s proposal “could still get taken seriously by some, given how appealing it may seem to shipowners who have consistently demanded control of revenues, and given how the US and other member states have pushed back against the IMO Net Zero Fund and [greenhouse gas] pricing.”
Tacit or explicit approval?
Next week, governments are expected to make statements saying which proposals – or which aspects of proposals – they prefer. Another set of talks will be held from November 23-27 before a potentially final round from November 30-December 4.
A new framework to tackle shipping emissions could be adopted at those talks if two-thirds of countries that are present and signed up to a regulation called Marpol Annex VI – endorsed by just over 100 states – vote in favour of it, as they did in April 2025.
The US and its allies are also trying to change the rules to make the next stage more difficult. Decisions that have been adopted at IMO meetings usually take effect automatically unless a certain number of countries object within a certain time period decided by governments, a system known as tacit approval.
But the US wants that to require explicit approval instead, so that any new emissions standard would not come into force unless enough governments – representing a certain percentage of the world’s shipping fleet – actively indicate support for it.
Critics say this change would give a small number of countries with large shipping registries the power to block implementation. Liberia has the world’s biggest shipping registry, run by an American company, followed by Panama and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
Liberia and Panama have supported the US at the talks on the Net Zero Framework. The Marshall Islands has long been one of the most vocal supporters of climate action in shipping but, with its officials and shipping registry income vulnerable to US retaliation, did not sign on to the recent Pacific proposal vowing to strengthen the NZF if it is re-opened.
Brazilian negotiator Adriana de Medeiros Gabinio warned in April that the NZF’s opponents are trying to change the rules by which it comes into force as a “safety net to block” it.
The post Battle over cleaning up shipping set to resume at London talks appeared first on Climate Home News.
Battle over cleaning up shipping set to resume at London talks
SYDNEY, Wednesday 26 August 2026 — New 2026 Sustainability Reports released by supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths this week demonstrate the retailers are failing on their commitments to end deforestation in their supply chains.
Adele Chasson, Nature Policy Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific said:
“These so-called sustainability reports are revealing. Despite their public commitments in 2024 and 2025, neither Coles nor Woolworths have taken deforestation-linked beef off their shelves. Meanwhile, bulldozers continue to tear up forests and bushland, pushing wildlife closer to extinction and causing mass toxic runoff to flow into the Great Barrier Reef. Millions of native animals like koalas are losing their homes to beef pastures each year, while the big supermarkets put off action.
“Australians would be shocked to know that beef on the shelves of our biggest supermarkets could be pushing threatened species to the brink of extinction. Collectively Coles and Woolworths have made more than $2 billion in profits in the last year, profiting from the destruction of wildlife and precious Australian nature. Coles and Woolworths owe it to shoppers to deliver on their promises and end deforestation in their supply chains now.
“As big beef buyers, Coles and Woolworths have an essential role to play in keeping Australia’s unique forests standing. They can help stop the Great Barrier Reef from being poisoned by runoff and protect iconic forest wildlife by taking deforestation off their shelves. It’s time these big companies put their money where their mouths are and follow through on their promise of sourcing and supplying deforestation-free beef.”
New Zealand’s parliament has adopted a controversial new law blocking a whole avenue of climate litigation and shutting down its most advanced corporate lawsuit, which has been blamed by the government for shaking business confidence and investment.
The Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill, expected to take effect in the coming days after it is formally signed by the Governor-General, prevents all current and future civil claims for climate loss or harm under tort law.
Justice minister Paul Goldsmith said last week that the aim was to give businesses “certainty around their climate change obligations”, noting it would not alter the government’s responsibilities under the Climate Change Response Act 2002 nor business obligations under the Emissions Trading Scheme.
“Our response to climate change is best managed by the Government at a national level and not through piece-meal litigation in the courts,” he added in a statement.
Such litigation, he said, “risks developing a new regime that contradicts the framework Parliament has already enacted” to tackle climate change.
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Goldsmith singled out a key domestic climate lawsuit brought by Northland iwi leader and activist Mike Smith against six big companies: dairy firms Fonterra and Dairy Holdings, energy firms Genesis Energy and Z Energy, New Zealand Steel and coal mining firm BT Mining. A seventh original defendant, Channel Infrastructure, was dropped after it permanently decommissioned its Marsden Point oil refinery.
Smith argued that these companies had caused him harm under public nuisance and negligence law, as well as a third breach of a duty to cease contributing to climate change that has yet to be tested domestically. He did not seek financial compensation, instead asking for the companies to immediately stop emitting or contributing to net greenhouse gas emissions.
In one of the most advanced corporate climate accountability lawsuits in the world, a trial had been scheduled for April 2027 after the Supreme Court unanimously allowed the case to continue.
Corporate lobbying in the shadows
Smith described the passing of the bill as “deeply concerning”, particularly as it coincided with the Supreme Court hearing another of his climate lawsuits. In that case, Smith v Attorney-General, he argues that the government’s response to climate change and its impacts on Māori communities in particular breaches rights to life and culture.
“That timing raises profound questions about the separation of powers and the rule of law,” said Smith. “Whatever one’s view of the merits of these cases, it is deeply troubling when parliament intervenes to remove a legal pathway while the courts are actively considering fundamental questions about climate responsibility, rights and the crown’s obligations.”
The bill – which says that no person (including the government) can be found liable in tort for emissions-related climate change effects – followed major lobbying efforts by the companies defending themselves in Smith’s lawsuit. They outlined a proposed legal amendment in a briefing note to the government in 2024.
The centre-right government has been fiercely criticised over its lack of transparency in relation to this lobbying activity. The national ombudsman recently found that the Prime Minister’s Office effectively withheld information requested by the Environmental Law Initiative about meetings, discussions and conversations regarding Smith’s case.
Green groups fail to stop bill
The bill sparked huge concern among environmental campaigners in New Zealand and elsewhere. Greenpeace Aotearoa called it a “shocking abuse of executive power” and the vast majority of submissions to a parliamentary inquiry said it should be rejected.
But in the end, it was adopted with little resistance, moving relatively smoothly through parliament, passing its third reading by 67 votes to 53. Sam Bookman, climate law lecturer at Melbourne Law School, told Climate Home News he was not surprised by this, given that the coalition government has a secure majority.
A complaint has been made to the UN special rapporteur on climate change and human rights by Smith, the National Iwi Chairs Forum Pou Tikanga and youth coalition Climate Clinic Aotearoa over what they see as the government’s heavy-handed approach. Smith is also challenging the new law in yet another lawsuit.
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Bookman thinks it “very unlikely” that such a challenge will succeed, noting that New Zealand’s constitution is firmly anchored in parliamentary sovereignty.
But the expert in climate law does not see the bill as the end of legal action in the country, noting that New Zealand has a “sophisticated climate litigation landscape with a growing number of specialist and experienced lawyers and NGOs”.
The country is also approaching its next general election in November, and some opposition parties have pledged to restore access to the courts if elected.
Amanda Larsson, global project lead on agriculture for Greenpeace International, said: “This law deserves to be tested, and I strongly encourage the international climate litigation community to unite and help defend New Zealanders’ fundamental right to hold polluters accountable before this becomes a global blueprint.”
Copycat legislation on the rise
New Zealand’s move is part of a small but growing legislative effort to shut down climate litigation around the world.
In the US, Republican politicians introduced legislation in the House and Senate in April that would shield fossil fuel firms from climate liability lawsuits. Similar laws have already been passed at state level in Tennessee, Utah, Iowa and Louisiana.
The German state of Bavaria has put forward a similar proposal to the Federal Council, aiming to block private climate claims as well as the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments imposing such liability. There are also proposals to limit available remedies and actions in the Netherlands and Belgium.
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Bookman said he expects more efforts to counter climate damages litigation and advised plaintiffs to think about how to respond, including drawing on broader support in opposing them.
“Even though it’s very hard for plaintiffs to win these types of cases, companies are very eager to avoid the expense, embarrassment and political accountability that come even with unsuccessful lawsuits,” he said.
The post New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation appeared first on Climate Home News.
New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation
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