Co-developing the energy transition with defenders: Lessons for COP30
During COP30, the world faces a critical question: how do we safeguard human rights in the context of the increasing global demand for critical energy transition minerals? Elisa Morgera stresses that environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) – who are increasingly seen as obstacles to climate progress – are experts who should not only be protected but also recognised as essential partners and leaders in designing a just energy transition
Transition minerals: a new frontier of injustice
The rush for “transition minerals” needed for renewable energy technologies is generating new injustices and a litany of alleged abuses worldwide. Indigenous Peoples, women, children, peasant communities and workers are often the most affected, while benefits flow elsewhere.
The staggering mineral demand projections that are currently driving policymaking, planning, financial allocations and international partnerships often do not factor in technological developments in recycling, reuse and material efficiency in the production of renewables equipment. In the first instance, these projects must be critically analysed to better understand how many minerals we currently need and how urgently.
As discussed in my latest report to the UN General Assembly, these mineral demand projections do not distinguish mineral dependence of sectors other than those engaged in the energy transition. These projections often include other sectors that contribute significantly to climate change (such as militarisation and unchecked expansion of data centres – the latter has also raised a call for a moratorium by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Water). States have an overarching duty to limit mining to what is essential for the energy transition, without responding to mineral demands for sectors that harm the climate.
Defenders under threat
Nowhere are the costs of unchecked mining expansion more visible than in the attacks faced by the human rights defenders (HRDs) speaking out against abuse. Mining is consistently the most dangerous sector to speak out against. Worryingly, no company in the sector has a robust policy for the protection of HRDs, even as violence, intimidation and retaliation continue to rise.
Defenders are not obstacles to climate progress - they are the guardian of the climate and other life-supporting systems.
Environmental human rights defenders ensure that the energy transition upholds the principles of justice, consent and accountability. When they are silenced, the transition itself loses legitimacy. In the current growing geopolitical contestation around securing mineral supply chains, it is crucial that HRDs can continue to raise concerns and organise globally, holding the line on long-fought protections, participation, equity and transparency measures in the mining industry.
Equally, EHRDs raise crucial concerns about whether the energy transition is a transition at all: widespread unsustainable mining, and its current dependence on fossil fuels, can significantly harm the climate system in and of itself, and worsen the human rights impacts of climate change. The International Court of Justice made clear in its Advisory Opinion on state obligations on climate change: all states have a stringent due diligence obligation to prevent further significant harm to the climate system and the environment, and protect human rights in all climate action.
At COP30, the international community must recognise that protecting human rights defenders – and co-developing climate solutions with them – is central to delivering on the Paris Agreement. Businesses and investors should publicly commit to enforceable zero tolerance for attacks across the entire renewable energy value chain, ensure defenders’ safe inclusion in consultations, demonstrate genuine respect and appropriate resources for free, prior and informed consent processes in accordance with relevant self-governance systems, screen potential partners for histories of reprisals, and use their leverage with states and suppliers to stop intimidation and violence. Investors should suspend financing where credible threats exist and publish how they respond to such cases. For a genuine transformation of our economic models and real energy transition, public authorities and business must also create enabling conditions and build their capacities (in cooperation with civil society and academia) to listen, value and co-develop energy transition plans and projects with defenders as critical knowledge holders. Protection of defenders and co-development of renewables and transition minerals projects must become a condition for climate finance, not an afterthought.
Reframing the transition through fair and equitable benefit sharing
A truly just transition will not only prevent the worst of human rights harms – it will also require fair and equitable benefit sharing. This principle, central to a human rights-based approach and the ecosystem approach, goes beyond compensation for harm. It calls for the development of fair partnerships across power and information asymmetries, recognising and strengthening community agency, knowledge and self-determination as an integral part of free, prior and informed consent – not as a way to extract consent, which is a well-documented violation of human rights.
Fairly and equitably sharing the benefits of a just energy transition entails moving away from a mere logic of exchange and “damage control”. It calls for a shift towards collaboratively identifying and understanding opportunities for positive impacts of the energy transition, locally and globally, according to Indigenous Peoples’, communities’ and women’s worldviews. This is about moving away from a pre-set array of development options, and instead co-developing socio-economic models that are deeply informed by human rights and their inter-connectedness with the climate and other life-supporting systems
At COP30, governments, companies and investors should commit to embedding fair and equitable benefit sharing into every renewable energy project agreement and financing decision.
Done right, benefit sharing can build social licence, reduce conflict, support whole-of-society engagement – absence of which is often at the root of attacks on HRDs – and anchor the transition in the capabilities, needs and knowledge of those most affected. It can support the transformative change we need to ensure a safer climate for all, which is called for by the best available science.
What COP30 must deliver and beyond
COP30 in Belém can be a pivotal moment for governments, companies and investors to emphasise some pre-conditions for the energy transition to be just, effective and transformative:
- Establish a global commitment to protection of and co-development with HRDs of the Just Transition (JT), with explicit reference to mining. This needs to be part of the JT work programme.
- Assess energy needs, limit new mining to sustainable renewables development, and invest in circular solutions and energy efficiency.
- Enshrine fair and equitable benefit sharing in national laws and investment frameworks, allocating funding and capacity building to bring practices up to the international standards of the human rights-based and ecosystem-based approach.
Beyond COP30, the UN Environmental Assembly in December could be another opportunity to take these points forward.
A rapid energy transition is needed, but it should not be unchecked. It should guarantee effective climate mitigation, bring benefits to nature and people, and reduce energy poverty and living costs – and it should be grounded in understanding that protecting HRDs and valuing their knowledge is an essential step in protecting everyone’s human right to a healthy environment.
