Countries gathered at the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) this week failed to back a proposal to establish a panel of experts to look at ways to limit the environmental harm caused by mining, agreeing instead to hold more talks on tackling the issue.
A draft resolution proposed by Colombia and Oman had sought to make mineral supply chains more transparent and sustainable amid booming demand for the minerals and metals needed to manufacture batteries, electric cars, solar panels and wind turbines as well as digital and military technologies.
It had called for the creation of an expert group to identify options for binding and non-binding international instruments to shape global action.
But amid divisions among nations and staunch opposition by some governments to any process that could eventually lead to binding instruments, country delegates meeting in Nairobi only agreed to a watered-down proposal to hold “dialogues” on “enhancing international cooperation on [the] sustainable management of minerals and metals”.
Governments also agreed to discuss how to recover minerals from waste, known as tailings, best practices for the sustainable management of minerals and metals, and strengthening the technological, financial and scientific capabilities of developing countries.
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Pedro Cortes, Colombia’s ambassador to Kenya, told an event on Wednesday that the negotiations had been “difficult” but that the agreement will enable governments to continue the discussion.
Mauricio Cabrera Leal, Colombia’s former vice minister of environmental policy who initiated work on the proposal last year, told Climate Home News that the outcome was not what he had envisaged but said it was “good” in light of the “hard” geopolitics at play in Nairobi.
Colombia’s push for a minerals treaty
Colombia has called for an international minerals treaty to define rules and standards to make mineral value chains more traceable and sustainable as the world scrambles to boost supplies of materials needed for the energy transition.
For resource-rich developing countries, demand for these minerals is an opportunity to diversify their economies, spur development and create jobs. But the extraction and processing of minerals also brings the risk of environmental damage and human rights abuses.
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Ambassador Cortes told an event on the sidelines of the UNEA that more stringent global oversight was needed.
“While various efforts have sought to promote the environmentally sustainable management of mining through voluntary guidelines, national legislations and industry-led initiatives, it is clear that greater international cooperation is needed at this critical moment to elevate ambition and accelerate action,” he said.
“This action will be essential to balance the growing demand for minerals required for the renewable energy transition with the imperative of ensuring environmental integrity and social sustainability,” he added.
Opposition to binding rules
But numerous governments – including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran as well as resource-rich Chile, Peru, Argentina and some African countries such as Uganda – opposed any discussion of possible binding rules on mineral value chains, several observers with access to the negotiations told Climate Home News.
While UNEA resolutions are not legally binding, they can kick off a process towards binding agreements, such as the launch of negotiations on a treaty to end plastics pollution – a process that has since stalled.
China, which dominates the processing and refining of minerals and metals, stayed largely quiet during the negotiations. But Nana Zhao, an official from the Chinese delegation, told Climate Home News that China was “satisfied” with the wording of the resolution.
The UNEA should stay focused on environmental matters and not bring in issues relating to supply chains, she added.
An opening for more co-operation
Campaigners, who are calling for binding rules to prevent environmental and social harms linked to mineral extraction and processing, expressed disappointment at the agreement but welcomed the prospect of further talks on the issue.
“The initial aim was to start with negotiations for [a] binding treaty and to get countries together to start talking about joint rules,” Johanna Sydow, a resource policy expert who heads the international environmental policy division of Germany’s Heinrich-Böll Foundation, told Climate Home News.
The agreement reached in Nairobi is “very weak” compared to that initial proposal but it creates the “foundation to stay in dialogue and try to find solutions and work on something constructively”, she said. “This is an opening for more co-operation”.
UN taskforce to deliver equitable supply chains
On the sidelines of the assembly, UN agencies launched a taskforce on critical energy transition minerals to coordinate UN activities in building more transparent, sustainable and equitable supply chains.
The taskforce will help deliver on recommendations by a panel of experts convened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres which called for putting equity and human rights at the core of mineral value chains.
It will be chaired by the UN Environment Programme, UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the UN Development Programme, and draw on expertise across the UN system.
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Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said the sustainable management of minerals cuts across trade, environment and development.
“Multilateral cooperation and partnerships beyond the UN [are] absolutely essential for us to respond to what we can see is a driving demand and hunger for minerals and metals. But before we have a ‘race’ to this, let’s make sure we look at these aspects that can lead to injustice, environmental harms, biodiversity loss, water pollution and human rights [harms],” she added.
Suneeta Kaimal, president and CEO of the Natural Resource Governance Institute and a member of the UN panel of experts, said the taskforce was “a timely and necessary step toward making the panel’s ambitions real”.
“It must work boldly and inclusively with communities and civil society, and it will need political commitment and financial resources – not only technical efforts – to drive a just and equitable new paradigm that safeguards people, ecosystems and economies in producer countries,” she said.
The post Push for global minerals deal meets opposition, more talks agreed appeared first on Climate Home News.
Push for global minerals deal meets opposition, more talks agreed
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The Turkish government has announced the dates and venues for the COP31 leaders’ summit and pre-COP meetings, and appointed a Turkish waste campaigner and Australian cattle farmer as climate “champions”.
In an open letter, published by the UN climate body on Tuesday, the Turkish environment minister and COP31 President-Designate Murat Kurum said the COP31 World Leaders’ Summit, at which dozens of heads of government are expected, will take place in Antalya, on Türkiye’s south coast, on November 11 and 12.
Previous leaders’ summits have taken place on the first two days of the COP negotiations or, at last year’s conference in Belém, before the start. But this year’s gathering will take place on the third and fourth day (Wednesday and Thursday) of the November 9-20 talks. Kurum said the summit “will be a key moment in generating political momentum and visibility for COP31”.
Last November, when Türkiye was chosen as host of the annual UN climate summit, Kurum said that, while the negotiations would be in the resort city of Antalya, the leaders’ summit would take place in the country’s largest city Istanbul. No explanation for the change of decision was given in Kurum’s letter.
Pacific pre-COP
Every COP conference is preceded by a smaller pre-COP gathering, attended by government climate negotiators. Because of a deal struck with Australia, which gave up its bid to physically host the summit in exchange for leading the COP31 discussions, this year’s pre-COP will take place on the Pacific island of Fiji, with a “leaders’ event” a 2.5-hour flight north in Tuvalu.
Kurum’s letter said both events would take place between October 5-8 and “will contribute to reflecting diverse perspectives in an inclusive manner”.
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The letter confirms that Australia’s climate and energy minister, Chris Bowen, will be given the title of “President of Negotiations” and “will have exclusive authority in leading the COP31 Negotiations, in consultation with Türkiye”.
“I have complete faith in his work,” said Kurum, adding that the two will send out a joint letter “in the coming weeks” which outlines their priorities regarding the negotiations.
The COP negotiations will be discussed at the annual Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin on April 21 and 22. German State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth recently announced plans to travel to Australia and meet with Bowen to discuss the talks.
COP31 champions
In his letter, Kurum announced that Samed Ağırbaş, president of Türkiye’s Zero Waste Foundation, which was set up by the country’s First Lady, has been appointed as the COP31 Climate High-Level Champion, tasked with working with business, cities and regions and civil society to promote climate action.
Sally Higgins, a young Australian cattle farmer and sustainability consultant who has also carried out research on land-use change, has been appointed as Youth Climate Champion. Kurum said she “is a passionate advocate for climate change and elevating the voices of young people”.
Turkish officials Fatma Varank, Halil Hasar and Mehmet Ali Kahraman have been appointed as COP31 CEO, Chief Climate Diplomacy Officer and Director of the COP31 Presidency Office respectively. Deputy environment ministers Ömer Bulut and Burak Demiralp will lead on construction and infrastructure, and operational and logistical processes.
Kurum said Türkiye’s Presidency would continue to use the Troika approach – a term coined two years ago under Azerbaijan’s COP29 Presidency, which worked with the previous Emirati COP28 and subsequent Brazilian COP30 hosts.
Kurum said the Troika approach offers “stability and predictability by connecting past, current and future presidencies” and that “in this regard” Türkiye and Australia would work “in close cooperation with Azerbaijan and Brazil”. This appears to overlook the 2027 COP32 host – Ethiopia.
The post Türkiye sets COP31 dates and appoints Australian cattle farmer as youth champion appeared first on Climate Home News.
Türkiye sets COP31 dates and appoints Australian cattle farmer as youth champion
Mae Buenaventura is the manager of the debt justice programme of the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, a regional alliance of peoples’ movements, community organizations, coalitions, NGOs and networks
A potentially historic shift in public debt governance is set to unfold in Washington DC this week as Global South governments take a collective stand to stop a “silent killer” of development financing.
The first-ever UN-hosted borrowers’ forum will officially be launched on April 15 on the sidelines of the 2026 Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Led by five convening countries – Zambia, Egypt, Nepal, the Maldives and Pakistan – the initiative is one of the key wins of last year’s 4th Financing for Development Conference (FFD4) in Sevilla, Spain.
The forum’s mandate is to establish a platform for borrower countries, supported by a UN secretariat, “to discuss technical issues, share information and experiences in addressing debt challenges, increase access to technical assistance and capacity-building in debt management, coordinate approaches and strengthen borrower countries’ voices in the global debt architecture”.
Instead of facing lenders alone, these countries will now use a UN-backed platform to share technical expertise and coordinate their approach to a global debt system that is fundamentally broken.
Debt grips climate-vulnerable nations
The human cost of the current debt architecture is staggering. According to the UN trade and development agency, UNCTAD, more than 40% of the global population – roughly 3.4 billion people – live in countries where the government is forced to spend more on debt payments than on the health, education and social protection of its citizens.
In so-called low-income countries, governments spend an average of 7.5% of their total budgets on debt service, with interest payments consuming up to 20% of total government revenue in these regions.
The Philippines is a case study in this financial stranglehold. It is part of a global majority forced to watch its public services crumble and infrastructure lag while its wealth is siphoned off to satisfy foreign lenders.
The policy of automatic appropriations – a legacy of the rule of late former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. – mandates that debt servicing takes precedence over any other public expenditure, effectively placing the demands of lenders above the needs of the Filipino people. Even as it faces a $1.5 trillion regional financing gap to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, its hands remain tied by a legal framework that values credit ratings over human lives.
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As a “middle-income country” (MIC), the Philippines is stuck in a frustrating purgatory. It is often deemed “too wealthy” for the G20’s debt-relief framework, yet too poor to absorb global economic shocks. Last year, Finance Undersecretary Joven Balbosa hit the nail on the head when he called for support that goes “beyond the simplistic income categorization” that ignores a country’s actual vulnerabilities.
Without an inclusive and equitable global debt architecture, nations including the Philippines are left to navigate catastrophic climate risks and economic shocks with zero fiscal breathing space.
No respite during climate disasters
The regional evidence of this systemic failure is everywhere. Take Pakistan, which in 2022 was hit by catastrophic flooding that submerged a third of the country and caused billions in losses. Despite this climate-driven disaster, World Bank data shows that Pakistan made payments in 2023 of $11.8 billion for public and publicly guaranteed (PPG) external debt, while its PPG external debt reached $93 billion that same year, surpassing pre-pandemic debt of $87 billion (2020).
Sri Lanka followed IMF prescriptions throughout 16 lending programs since 1991, only to become the first Asian country this century to default. Its MIC status prevents application for debt relief and restructuring measures. Today, the Sri Lankan people bear the brunt of harsh conditionalities, including raising VAT from 8% to 15%, slashing food and fuel subsidies, and the erosion of hard-earned worker pensions.
Currently, the global rules of lending and borrowing are set by a “creditors’ club” composed of the IMF, the World Bank and the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable it set up, and the Paris Club.
These institutions measure “debt sustainability” through a narrow lens of a country’s capacity to make timely repayments. They largely ignore internal economic inequalities, gender disparities and the existential threat of climate change.
Crises should trigger debt service cancellation
By organising the new borrowers’ forum, the Global South is signalling that the era of passive “standard-setting” by lenders is over.
The ultimate goal for global civil society and debt justice movements is the establishment of a UN Debt Convention; a democratic, binding and inclusive framework that governs both lenders and borrowers. This mechanism would ensure that debt restructuring and cancellation are sufficient to allow countries to fulfill their international human rights obligations and implement necessary climate actions.
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To be truly transformative, debt sustainability analyses must align with human rights and sustainable development needs. This means conducting impact assessments – both before and after loans are issued – to identify “illegitimate” debts that do not benefit the public.
Crucially, we need an automatic debt service cancellation mechanism that triggers during extreme climatic, environmental or health shocks. We also need a binding global debt registry to ensure that every loan is transparent and subject to public scrutiny.
Whether the borrowers’ forum becomes a true milestone depends on its courage to challenge the status quo. We can no longer allow debt to act as a “silent killer” of our future. It is time to demand a financial system that serves humanity, not just the balance sheets of the powerful.
The post Broken debt system must be fixed to confront future climate shocks appeared first on Climate Home News.
Broken debt system must be fixed to confront future climate shocks
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