Abdulsalam Musa squats as he chips away at lithium-rich rocks with a chisel and hammer in a mining pit in Nigeria’s northwestern state of Kaduna.
The work is dangerous and backbreaking and the 19-year-old is covered in sweat, but he will earn about 4,000 Nigerian nairas ($2.50) for the day – enough to cover his food costs.
“Sometimes, the pits collapse and if someone is trapped inside, that’s his end,” said Musa, resting his back on the edge of the 250 metre-deep hole he had just been mining.
Lithium is a key ingredient of rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage that are critical for the clean energy transition, and surging global demand for the light and silvery metal has opened a new mining frontier in Nigeria’s central and northern states, where significant reserves have been found.
To benefit from the global lithium rush, the Nigerian government has embarked on a programme of reforms to formalise the sector – aiming to bring artisanal miners like Musa, who dig most of the country’s minerals out of the ground, into regulated cooperatives and add value to its lithium resources by processing them domestically.
The government also wants to attract foreign investors to the nascent sector as it seeks to diversify its economy away from oil.
The push to benefit more from natural mineral deposits is a priority for a growing number of African countries seeking to pull their people out of poverty – from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Zambia – but they face common challenges to modernise their mining industry and add value to their resources.
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In Nigeria, Climate Home found that one of the country’s first lithium processing plants has struggled to deliver on its early promises, highlighting the challenges the West African nation faces in reaping the benefits of the global transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources.
Experts told Climate Home News that outdated and poorly enforced regulations have fostered an informal economy of small-scale miners and middlemen, exacerbating the risk of exploitation and environmental degradation in mineral-rich communities.
Early processing efforts
The lithium processing plant inaugurated in the remote village of Kangimi in Kaduna State in May 2024 is a joint venture between the state government and Chinese company Ming Xin Mineral Separation Nigeria Ltd.
In a speech marking the plant’s opening, Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani said the local government would hold a 30% stake in the project through the state-owned Kaduna Mining Development Company (KMDC).
KMDC, which oversees mining activities in the state, would handle “community engagement, all security issues as well as the provision of land” while Ming Xin would run the project, Sani said in a speech.
But a year on from the processing plant’s trumpeted inauguration, it is still not fully operational. Local people said they have yet to see any of the promised benefits materialise, including jobs and improved health and education infrastructure, and are worried about possible pollution.
It is also unclear where the lithium being processed at the site comes from, raising concerns the plant could end up incentivising the informal mining the government wants to regulate.
KMDC officials told Climate Home the refinery remains in its initial phase of development and is awaiting the necessary approval from the federal government to begin operating at full commercial scale. They added that the state company was not directly involved in the plant’s operations.
Ming Xin did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
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The Chinese Embassy in Abuja told Climate Home it had contacted Ming Xin, which said it “holds valid mining licenses and community agreements, has consistently contributed to local communities, created employment opportunities, and always paid rapt attention to protect the local environment”.
“The embassy is willing to work together with the Nigerian side to further strengthen mining cooperation and promote a sound, orderly and sustainable development of China-Nigeria mining partnership, so as to safeguard the common interests of companies from both sides and benefits of both peoples,” the embassy’s statement added.
Nigeria’s burgeoning lithium market has gained the attention of several other Chinese companies and investors. Jiuling Lithium Mining Company and Canmax Technologies are major investors in two new lithium processing plants in Nigeria, worth over $800 million together, which are due to open later this year.
An informal mining sector
Nigeria’s overwhelmingly informal mining sector makes it difficult to trace the lithium produced as it moves along the supply chain.
The ore mined by workers like Musa is bagged in 50 kg sacks and sold to middlemen – some of whom operate illegally without the required licences – who then sell it on to larger traders or exporters.
Some miners and traders use social media platforms, like TikTok and Facebook, to buy and sell minerals, making it even harder for authorities to regulate the trade.
One Facebook group called “Nigeria mineral hub“, which has over 70,000 members, is described as “a verified open market for mineral trade – connecting miners, buyers, and investors across Nigeria and beyond”.
Members advertise various minerals and gemstones they want to sell or buy – including lithium.
Nigeria’s value-added dreams
To break from the pit-to-port export model of the past and capture a slice of the battery-driven lithium boom, the Nigerian government now wants to refine its resources domestically so they can fetch a higher price on the international market.
Last year, President Bola Tinubu directed the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development to only issue mining licences to companies that establish processing plants to refine minerals in the country first.
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“We must transition from being merely suppliers of raw materials to becoming globally competitive participants in high-value mineral supply chains,” Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Oladele Alake told a transition minerals conference at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris in May.
In 2022, the Kaduna State government announced the construction of the lithium processing plant, months after the Nigerian government said it had rejected a proposal from EV giant Tesla to purchase raw lithium from the country for its batteries.
In contrast, Kaduna State hailed Ming Xin’s lithium plant as a flagship value-addition project.
It said the plant would produce 1,500 metric tons of lithium concentrate per day, raise revenue of between 1 billion-1.5 billion Nigerian naira ($650,000- $980,000) per year and create thousands of jobs in a rural farming area that has previously been targeted by violent armed gangs.
The lithium concentrate is destined for export to China, which refines most of the world’s lithium and produces most of its lithium-ion batteries, for further processing into battery-grade lithium.
The processing plant
Speaking to Climate Home by phone, Isah Suleiman, special assistant to KMDC’s managing director, said he didn’t know who was mining the lithium supplying the processing plant or whether the company was already exporting refined lithium.
He said Ming Xin sources some of its lithium from the northwestern state of Kebbi as well as from sites under mining licenses from the Kaduna State government.
Ibrahim Adam, who said he was the processing plant’s site manager, told Climate Home by phone that the company had started sourcing lithium from Kebbi after a bandit attack killed security personnel at a major Kaduna government mining site in 2023.
Two employees at the plant, speaking on condition of anonymity, said refined lithium was leaving the processing plant in trucks.
While Climate Home found no evidence that Ming Xin’s plant buys its raw lithium from unregulated sources, increasing transparency along the country’s lithium supply chain is a growing concern for the government.
Amira Adamu Waziri, senior advisor on mining and policy to Nigeria’s minister of solid minerals development, told the OECD in May that the lack of traceability in supply chains resulted in loss of government revenues and posed “a reputational risk” as “many transactions tend to bypass formal oversight”.
Meanwhile, local people told Climate Home they had so far seen little benefit from the plant.
‘We were failed’
The processing plant sits a few hundred metres away from a dilapidated school building on the edge of Kangimi, a deprived farming village.
Local residents told Climate Home that no community development agreement had been negotiated with local people, despite it being a requirement under Nigerian law.
Danjuma Husseini, Kangimi village head, told Climate Home that Ming Xin made verbal commitments to create jobs for local people, renovate the decrepit school and build a local health facility and a tarred road. But none of the promises have yet begun to materialise.
In a video statement shared with Climate Home, KMDC’s managing director Shuaibu Bello said the plant would create 1,500 direct and 5,000 indirect jobs. But during a visit to the site in March, only 17 local youths were employed to work in roles such as security guards, one employee told Climate Home.
Local people also expressed concerns about pollution. Pits used to wash the lithium ore with acidic chemicals before it is processed are located next to a dam on which residents depend for their sole source of water.
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During heavy rains, polluted water from the pits overflows and contaminates the water in the dam, according to another employee.
“The company failed us. Their promises were not kept,” said local resident Gambo Abdul, who told Climate Home he had initially been optimistic the processing plant would help improve Kangimi’s infrastructure, including ensuring his 12 children could attend a better school.
In the video statement, KMDC’s Bello said the company had “closely monitored” and helped develop “the proper community development agreement between the company and the community”, including for local people to be first in line for jobs and to ensure the company delivers corporate social responsibility projects.
His special assistant Suleiman added that a committee is being set up to oversee the delivery of community benefits but did not spell out what the agreement with the Kangimi community entails.
Nigeria’s federal government did not respond to specific questions about the processing plant’s operations but it said that Kaduna State, as a partner in the project, was responsible for the plant’s operations.
Segun Tomori, spokesperson for the Ministry of Solid Minerals, told Climate Home that requiring companies to process minerals in Nigeria will develop the mining industry, create employment and generate better export prospects.
Combatting illegal trade
Meanwhile, the government crackdown on illegal mining has already begun.
Minister Alake told the OECD in May that the government had formalised over 1,200 small-scale mining cooperatives and boosted revenue generation from mining fees in the first quarter of 2025.
In addition, the government tasked more than 2,000 mine “marshals” to police the sector. Drawn from the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, a para-military government agency, the marshals have arrested 327 “illegal miners” and recovered 98 mine sites that had been occupied by illegal miners in the past year.
“Over 150 illegal operators are undergoing prosecutions and we’ve secured conviction, which is sending a very poignant message to the industry that there is a new sheriff in town. We no longer tolerate illegal operations in Nigeria,” Alake added.
Uche Igwe, governance expert at the London School of Economics Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa, said that the success of the government’s policies will depend on how strongly they are put into practice.
“If you don’t regulate [the mining sector], you create an opportunity for all kinds of actors and all kinds of interests to come and play. So the buck stops at the federal government…to enforce the regulation,” he said.
Main image caption: A young man sorts through lithium ore in Kaduna State (Photo: Sadiq Mustapha)
The post Nigeria’s push to cash in on lithium rush gets off to a rocky start appeared first on Climate Home News.
Nigeria’s push to cash in on lithium rush gets off to a rocky start
Britain’s new prime minister announced in his first week that he will cut the cost of public transport and electricity, making lower-emission technologies like bus travel, electric vehicles and heat pumps more affordable for voters. But some of the funding for those policies will come from the budget for international climate finance, the government has said, raising concerns about fairness.
Former Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham took over from Keir Starmer as Labour Party leader and prime minister on Monday, appointing climate advocates Ed Miliband as foreign and development minister and Miatta Fahnbulleh as climate and energy minister.
On Tuesday, Burnham said his government would cut the value added tax (VAT) households and some small businesses pay on their electricity bills from 5% to zero from October 1, saving households £45 ($60) a year.
On Wednesday, he said the maximum fare bus companies in England can charge for a single journey will be reduced from £3 ($4) to £2 ($2.67) from January 1, 2027. The government said the subsidies to achieve this would be mostly funded by switching money set aside for overseas climate finance projects from grants to loans. It did not give further information in its announcement, while the UK’s transport minister told Sky News the plan is still being worked out.
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The floated changes to the climate finance budget were immediately criticised by groups working on climate justice for developing countries, including Bond, the UK network for NGOs, which described the decision as “disappointing”.
“Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not the answer and pitches marginalised communities in the UK against marginalised communities in lower-income and climate-vulnerable countries,” BOND CEO Romilly Greenhill said in a statement. “Climate finance must not worsen the debt burden of countries that are already suffering the worst – and most costly – impacts of a climate crisis they did not cause.”
Hunt for money
Burnham promoted both policies as measures to combat the rising cost of living and “give people breathing space”, with climate campaigners and industry groups noting they are also likely to reduce the UK’s climate-heating emissions by encouraging bus travel and the use of electric vehicles and heating.
But thorny questions remain over how the policies will be paid for. The government said Tuesday’s VAT cut for electricity would be funded by scrapping the previous government’s digital ID programme, but Darren Jones, a former minister involved with that policy, said it had been “unfunded” – a statement that dominated media coverage.
A day later, the government said the new bus fare cap would cost £454 million ($606m). Transport minister Heidi Alexander told Sky News that £54 million would be taken from an under-spend in the budget of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and £400 million would come from changing unspecified international climate finance from grants to loans. The details “still need to be worked through”, she said, adding that the government “had wanted to make an announcement today”.
Mohamed Adow, director of Nairobi-based think-tank Power Shift Africa, said “climate finance was never meant to be a pot of money that governments raid when they need to pay for domestic spending”.
DESNZ had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication. “We’re not wanting to fleece anyone here, and we actually want to maximise the development potential of this money that is available,” minister Alexander said in her TV interview.
Aside from the controversy over their funding, the policies themselves were widely welcomed by climate campaigners. Jess Ralston, energy lead at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said the tax cut on electricity bills “could help households to switch to electric heat pumps, protecting UK homes from becoming ever more exposed to the whims of Putin and Trump when turning on their gas boiler”.
The last few months have seen global momentum build behind electrification, spurred by the US-Iran war disrupting oil and gas supplies and driving up prices. The Turkish and Australian COP31 presidencies have announced a global target to boost electrification, backed by the European Union, Canada, Philippines, UK and others.
Campaigners call for lower power prices
While reaction to the VAT cut was supportive, some questioned whether £45 a year of savings per household is enough and called for more measures to cut electricity bills.
Friends of the Earth’s energy lead Imogen Dow said those on the lowest incomes should be given cheaper electricity through a “social tariff” and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think-tank – which is close to the Labour Party – said levies on energy bills should be shifted to general taxation.
Matthew Paterson, a politics professor at Manchester University, told Climate Home News that the most effective way to reduce electricity bills is to take on the UK’s private electricity companies, while consumer-oriented measures like the VAT cut are “tinkering around the edges”.
Jarrod Birch, head of policy and public affairs for the EV charging industry association Charge UK, said that while the policy would make home-charging cheaper, people who charge their vehicles at public points will still have to pay 20% VAT. The UK’s tax authority is fighting a court ruling that ordered it to reduce the tax motorists pay on public chargers to the current household rate of 5%.
Further measures will be the responsibility of Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Miatta Fahnbulleh, who is relatively new to politics after a career at left-wing, pro-climate think tanks the IPPR and the New Economics Foundation.
Michael Jacobs, political economy professor at Sheffield University and former adviser to UK Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, said Fahnbulleh would be a “climate advocate” who would continue the “progressive climate agenda” of her predecessor Ed Miliband.
“She’s a very creative policy wonk so I expect there to be lots of policy innovation under her,” he said, “I think she will be looking at new ways to encourage take-up of heat pumps and domestic batteries.”
Aid budget in Miliband’s hands
Despite reports he could be made finance minister, Miliband has been appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Miliband has attended many climate COP meetings over several decades, most recently representing the UK at COP29 and COP30, and has been targeted by the right-wing media for his support for climate action and opposition to new oil and gas drilling in the UK’s part of the North Sea.
In his new role, Miliband will be responsible for the UK’s overseas aid budget including its international climate finance, which the Starmer government had slashed to fund increases in defence spending.
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Jacobs said he expected Miliband to prioritise climate and development in the UK’s foreign policy and to push Burnham and new finance minister John Healey to reverse Starmer’s aid cuts.
But there are fears Healey could try to cut the aid budget further to fund the military. Healey was a surprise pick for Chancellor of the Exchequer and grabbed headlines when he resigned as Starmer’s defence minister in June over what he saw as insufficient defence spending.
The post Will new UK PM’s green measures at home cause climate finance pain overseas? appeared first on Climate Home News.
Will new UK PM’s green measures at home cause climate finance pain overseas?
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, 22 July 2026 – Greenpeace Netherlands has launched legal proceedings against a multi-billion-dollar global expansion plan by the biggest meat producer in Australia, JBS, in an escalation of climate litigation against the livestock industry.
Greenpeace petitioned a Dutch court to compel the meat giant to disclose information in order to challenge its business policies in court, including a US$6 billion global expansion, for which almost half is earmarked for Nigeria.
Elizabeth Atieno, Food Campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, said: “JBS’ meat empire expanded hand-in-glove with Amazon destruction, colossal emissions, human rights and corruption scandals, all with barely a semblance of transparency. This is the business model it wants to export to sub-Saharan Africa. JBS promises food security, but its expansion in Nigeria risks causing irreversible environmental damage and the displacement of smallholder farmers to line the pockets of wealthy global elites.
“Nigerians know well from the legacy of companies like Shell the destructive impact wrought by unchecked corporate power. As Greenpeace Africa has argued before the African Court of Human Rights, states with jurisdiction over multinationals must hold those corporate actors accountable – wherever they operate in the world. We welcome this bold legal action: the Netherlands and other European states must not be safe havens for corporations like JBS seeking to evade their responsibilities.”
In light of JBS’ longstanding failure to publish accurate and reliable information on its climate, nature and human rights impacts or its expansion plans, Greenpeace Netherlands views accessing this data as a necessary precursor to formal litigation in order to support its case. The case has the potential to be the first climate litigation of this scale against the livestock industry. This could set a major precedent for future legal challenges against the industrial agriculture sector, a major source of global emissions, particularly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, responsible for 0.5°C of warming since the Industrial Revolution.[1]
JBS, via its subsidiary JBS Foods Australia, is the largest meat and food processing company in Australia. With a weekly processing capacity of over 50,000 cattle, it accounts for almost a quarter of all beef processing in the country, as well as a significant presence in the lamb, pork and farmed fish markets. [2] In 2022, ABC’s Four Corners accused the company of ‘repeatedly failing to protect its workers from horrific injuries.’ [3]
Marieke Vellekoop, Executive Director at Greenpeace Netherlands, said “In a month where JBS has thrown its flagship environmental commitments onto the scrap heap, JBS’ disdain for basic transparency only adds to the impression that this meat giant has something to hide and is desperate to prevent its expansion plans from going public. We were hoping we wouldn’t have to trouble a judge with this matter, but JBS has left us no choice but to seek our right to information through the Dutch courts.
“JBS appears to believe that despite moving to the Netherlands, our rules do not apply to it. This legal action aims to prove it wrong – and lay the ground for a first major climate and nature lawsuit against the dangerous expansion of the global meat industry.“
At the centre of the dispute is JBS’ planned US$ 2.5 billion investment in industrial livestock production in Nigeria.[2] Civil society groups in Nigeria have raised urgent warnings that the aggressive expansion will threaten local food security, drive regional instability, and accelerate ecological degradation. There is no available evidence that JBS has conducted any impact assessments or community consultations in Nigeria, and local efforts to gather more information via Freedom of Information requests have reportedly been ignored.[3]
The escalation to the courts follows the refusal of JBS, the world’s largest meat company, to comply with a formal disclosure demand delivered by Greenpeace Netherlands in April. The environmental group is utilising new Dutch legislation, which grants parties with a legitimate interest the right to demand access to specific corporate data necessary to build litigation against Dutch companies.[4]
Greenpeace Netherlands’ lawyers allege that JBS’ historic business practices and future expansion plans are inconsistent with the company’s climate and biodiversity obligations and represent a breach of its Dutch duty of care, which requires companies to act in line with international human rights law.[5]
If the court rules in favor of Greenpeace Netherlands, it is entitled to seek the required information in the form of documents and from senior JBS figures under oath, raising the prospect of the Batista brothers being forced to testify in Dutch court. JBS reincorporated as a Dutch entity (JBS N.V.) last year to facilitate a dual listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
In April, JBS was forced to temporarily suspend its first annual general meeting since moving its headquarters to Amsterdam after it was disrupted by dozens of Greenpeace Netherlands activists.
Last week, JBS scrapped two flagship commitments to reach Net Zero emissions by 2040 and eradicate deforestation from its supply chain. It also removed any explicit reference to Indigenous lands from all of its current policies. Greenpeace Netherlands is concerned this indicates JBS is seeking to expand unconstrained by the climate, nature and human rights impacts of its business.
–ENDS–
Notes:
[1] The livestock sector is estimated to be responsible for 31% of global methane emissions (more than oil and gas operations). In comparison to CO2, methane is shorter lived (around 12 years) but has a much stronger ability to trap heat in the atmosphere over its lifetime: it has approximately 80 times more climate impact than CO2 when measured over 20 years. This means that changes in methane emissions have a more rapid effect on the climate than changes in CO2. See Greenpeace Netherlands letter to JBS dated 30 April 2026.
[2] JBS Foods Australia, Our Business
[3] ABC, Australia’s biggest meat company JBS is repeatedly failing to protect its workers from horrific injuries, 25 April 2022
[4] JBS announcement
[5] Experts raise concerns over the risks of industrial animal farming (The Sun Nigeria)
[6] Simplification and modernisation of Dutch evidence law (Fieldfisher)
[7] Greenpeace Netherlands petition to Dutch court available here. Media briefing with further details on JBS expansion plans, including in Nigeria, available here.
Greenpeace launches legal challenge against Australia’s biggest meat company
Climate Change
“Next year is too late for regulations”: Beetaloo Energy’s 2GW gas-powered AI data centre a “disaster proposal” destined to cause climate chaos
SYDNEY, Wednesday 22 July 2026 — Beetaloo Energy has secured land from the NT Government for a massive $40 billion “hyperscale” AI data centre near Darwin, which would be powered by 2 gigawatts (GW) of gas power fracked directly from the Beetaloo basin, prompting calls from Greenpeace for urgent federal legislation.
The proposal marks a dangerous escalation in the AI data centre industry’s expansion, which threatens to entrench fossil fuel infrastructure for decades and put immense pressure on the region’s fragile water resources — while continuing to be unregulated.
Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This disaster proposal for a 2GW gas-powered AI data centre in the NT is a shocking example of the unchecked expansion of hyperscale data centres in Australia. It is also, critically, more evidence for the urgent need for a moratorium on all new data centres until strong, binding regulations are put in place to protect our communities and climate.
“This proposal mirrors the frenzied, unchecked expansion currently wreaking havoc on communities in the US. We are seeing cowboy data centre operators treat Australia like a playground, steam-rolling ahead with projects that would lock down precious water resources and spike emissions, despite the overwhelming community opposition.
“Every day, more councils, communities and environmental groups are joining Greenpeace’s call for a moratorium on data centres, yet as of today there is still no system of safeguards or rules in place to regulate these companies.
“While Beetaloo Energy and the NT Government prepare to bulldoze ahead with this climate and water disaster, the Prime Minister is asleep at the wheel, promising to legislate a vague set of standards next year.
“Next year is too late, and anything less than mandating data centres cover their own energy demand, and then some, with new renewable energy is not enough.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lucy.keller@greenpeace.org
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