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The Path Toward a More Just and Sustainable Mineral Supply Chain
What’s needed to make the Minerals Security Partnership work on the ground
Sep 15, 2024
Azure waters and exotic islands are not the only attractions of Cabo Delgado in Mozambique. The province is home to the largest graphite reserve globally, prompting Syrah Resources’ Twigg to open the Balama mine. This is one of the dozen projects across the world chosen by the Minerals Security Partnership to secure and diversify the supply of raw materials.
The energy transition is dependent on critical minerals such as lithium and copper as the world electrifies transport and shifts to renewables. With most minerals currently controlled by China, many western countries are playing catch up. The Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), whose members include Australia, Canada, India, the U.S. and many European countries, is central to this effort.
History is full of not-so-pretty attempts by western nations to capture minerals supply chains, as many living in the Global South know first hand. So how can this partnership offer a truly different value proposition centered on sustainability and deliver truly responsible projects?
Strong transparent standards
Despite some effort, the current situation in the extractive industries is far from adequate. A recent report by the International Energy Agency notes that while governance in the minerals sector has somewhat improved, progress on water and greenhouse gas emissions is at best stagnating. (Add to this a deeply felt mistrust among communities and companies and you quickly realize how complicated the matters are.)
But it does not have to be this way. Most technologies for safer tailings management or better water treatment, rules for robust anti-corruption and human rights due diligence, and practices to engage communities and co-govern with Indigenous peoples all exist. They just need to be applied and upheld consistently. This is where the new minerals partnership can bring real value.
Yet right now the MSP principles lack any such concrete requirements. That’s a big omission. For example in the case of Cabo Delgado, concerns around involuntary resettlement of nearby communities and local value proposition abide. MSP-supported projects like this one will be judged as much by the volumes of critical minerals they supply as by their environmental and social stewardship.
The good news is that the MSP does not have to reinvent the wheel. The answer lies in applying the human right and environmental due diligence practices as stipulated in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) guidelines. The EU has recently done exactly that in its new battery law. This will require tracing, addressing and mitigating all manner of social and environmental risks, alongside upholding global treaties such as on Free, Prior and Informed Consent.
Any global miner, refiner, or recycler whose cobalt, graphite, lithium, and nickel are found in batteries on the European market will already have to track and mitigate all manner of social and environmental risks from 2026, including forced labor, water pollution, and biodiversity. MSP member countries can simply uplift these provisions into the partnership projects.
From rhetoric to action on the ground
Setting strong and transparent standards is the first step. These need to also be implemented so that they bring difference on the ground.
This means that the minerals partnership needs to quickly move from vision to a pipeline of responsible projects on the ground. So the focus should be on coordinating with local governments to bring local value and infrastructure, on engaging local communities to have a social license to operate and on bringing in finance instructions to make the projects happen.
Given how far ahead China is, there is no time to waste. A laser sharp focus to scale responsibly managed projects across the world is necessary to build a more diverse supply chain. But this should also come with better environmental stewardship and advancing the rights and livelihoods of those impacted, breaking from past behavior.
The Minerals Security Partnership shows global governments are waking up to the challenge of securing critical minerals responsibly. But whether projects like the Balama mine will become largest suppliers of quality graphite and raise the local community out of poverty will depend on how quickly responsible mining practices are scaled up on the ground.
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Critics Warn G20's LNG Subsidies Killing Hope for Livable Future
"There is no time for so-called transition fuels, when fossil fuel dependency is exacerbating the climate and energy crises, and fossil fuel projects are harming communities and the environment," warned one campaigner.
Apr 05, 2023
Despite pledging to take action on the climate emergency, including by ending international fossil fuel financing, Group of 20 governments continue to pour billions of dollars into gas infrastructure expansion, according to an analysis released Wednesday.
"Oil Change International (OCI) finds that G20 government institutions were involved in financing 82% of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal capacity built from 2012-22," states the group's new report, highlighting at least $78 billion in public financing.
"Of the $234.6 billion total capital expenditure for the LNG export terminals built in the last decade, loans from international public finance institutions made up at least 24% of the total ($55.2 billion)," the report explains. "On top of this, these institutions provided $22.4 billion in equity investments and loan guarantees to insure against potential losses for other financiers."
The 17 completed projects included in the analysis have locked 928 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) each year, comparable to "the annual emissions of 423 coal-fired power plants, nearly two times the annual emissions of Canada, or over three times the annual emissions of France."
OCI's briefing warns that another dozen projects expected to be completed by 2026 would generate an additional 654 megatonnes of yearly planet-heating pollution, or about the annual emissions of Germany—as climate scientists and energy experts emphasize the need to swiftly end the world's fossil fuel era.
"These shocking figures show that laggard countries need to catch up with leading governments and urgently change course to stop pumping taxpayers' money into gas projects that are wrecking our climate, leave the energy crisis unsolved, and will end up as stranded assets."
"These shocking figures show that laggard countries need to catch up with leading governments and urgently change course to stop pumping taxpayers' money into gas projects that are wrecking our climate, leave the energy crisis unsolved, and will end up as stranded assets," asserted OCI public finance strategist Adam McGibbon.
At $39.7 billion, Japan leads the world in public financing for LNG export capacity 2012-26, followed by China ($25.4 billion) and the United States ($15.5 billion). Rounding out the top 10 "worst offenders" are South Korea, Russia, Italy, Germany, France, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.
During the COP26 climate summit in Scotland two years ago, the United States, Italy, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands were among the 39 countries and institutions that signed the Glasgow Statement, agreeing to cut off financing for new international fossil fuel projects by the end of last year and instead invest in clean energy.
Japan initially held out, but under pressure from its fellow Group of Seven countries, ultimately agreed to the pledge last May. However, in July, at the urging of Germany and Italy, the G7 watered down its members' commitments specifically on gas.
With Japan set to host a G7 summit in Hiroshima next month, the nation's "leadership in the expansion of LNG development is the exact opposite of what we need," OCI campaigner Makiko Arima declared Wednesday. "Japan needs to take last year's G7 commitment to end public finance for fossil fuels seriously and stop funding gas projects."
"There is no time for so-called transition fuels, when fossil fuel dependency is exacerbating the climate and energy crises, and fossil fuel projects are harming communities and the environment," Arima added. "G7 countries need to do much more than make climate commitments that they break."
\u201c\ud83d\udea8NEW: Japan, China, Korea, and the US are the biggest culprits for backing new LNG export capacity with public money \ud83d\udcb5 It\u2019s time for G20 countries to #StopFundingFossils & shift to clean: https://t.co/WqHnM3JVut\u201d— Oil Change International (@Oil Change International) 1680691434
While the United States, Australia, and Russia top the list of counties, by emissions, where publicly financed LNG products were built in the past decade or are now underway, they are followed by nations that aren't the "worst offenders" in terms of funding: Mozambique, Canada, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, and Mexico.
As Common Dreams has reported, civil society groups across Africa have argued in recent months that "rather than doubling down on the obsolete and dirty energy systems," the African Union must "move away from harmful fossil fuels towards a transformed energy system that is clean, renewable, democratic, and actually serves its peoples."
Anabela Lemos, director of Justica Ambiental!/Friends of the Earth Mozambique, echoed that argument Wednesday.
While Global North nations, "the culprits creating the climate crisis, benefit from this gas," it is the Global South "who will suffer," Lemos stressed, noting that "Mozambique has been hit by four cyclones within three years that have displaced over 1 million people."
"The gas industry in Mozambique is devastating the country's climate, people, environment, and economy," she said. "Even though gas has been produced in Mozambique for decades, still only 30% of people have electricity access, and in Inhambane Province, where Sasol has been extracting gas for 20 years, displaced communities have seen no benefits."
"Northern governments and their companies involved in the Mozambique LNG Project in Cabo Delgado Province are complicit in forcing the already debt-ridden country into a fossil fuel lock-in, and pushing people into further poverty, by taking away their livelihoods and fueling a war that has created 1 million refugees," Lemos added.
Given the impacts of export terminals on both the climate and the communities around such facilities, OCI's report concludes with recommendations that include ending domestic subsidies and permits for fossil fuel development, scaling up finance for clean energy, and providing debt cancellation, climate finance, and loss and damage support for the Global South.
"To meet their climate obligations, governments should stop funding LNG expansion," said McGibbon. "In addition, those countries that have not already done so should join the Glasgow Statement initiative to show they are serious about solving the climate and energy security crises. Anything less is just hot air."
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From the African Coast to Towers of Wall Street, the Climate Bombs Are Ticking
The devastation of Cyclone Freddy serves as a stark illustration of the warnings included in the new IPCC report.
Mar 25, 2023
“Your people can’t take it anymore, Lord
In exchange for oil and gas they sell our country.”
These lines, translated from Portuguese, are from the song “Vendem o Pais,” “They Sell the Country,” by the late, great Mozambican hip hop artist Azagaia. Born Edson da Luz, he died on March 9th at the age of 38. He was a movement artist, empowering millions with songs challenging the elite and inspiring grassroots action. A frequent theme in his lyrics is the exploitation of Mozambique by extractive industries like oil and gas. Thousands poured into the streets on the news of his death, to honor his life and to protest the power structures he so consistently and eloquently criticized. The Mozambican government responded with a brutal crackdown, unleashing tear gas, rubber bullets, and beating and arresting protesters.
Azagaia’s death coincided with two events that reinforce central themes of his music. First, Cyclone Freddy, a world-record-breaking extreme storm, slammed Southern Africa not once but twice, wreaking devastation, killing over 500 people in Malawi, Mozambique, and Madagascar and displacing over one million people. And second, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, released its Sixth Synthesis Report, summarizing almost a decade of global scientific research on climate change and issuing its direst warnings yet on the urgency of immediate, concerted global climate action.
Cyclone Freddy was the longest-lived and highest-energy tropical cyclone in recorded history. The storm was named on February 6th, as it developed off the northwest coast of Australia. Freddy headed west over the Pacific Ocean, building force from the historically high ocean surface temperatures, slamming into the island nation of Madagascar on February 21st. After then spending five days inundating Mozambique, Freddy retreated to the waters offshore, again building strength. As police were suppressing the Azagaia protests, Freddy arrived again, pummeling Mozambique and southern Malawi for four days before dissipating. The World Food Program and other aid agencies are scrambling to reach people cut off by the torrential rain, flooding and mudslides.
Cyclone Freddy serves as a stark illustration of the warnings included in the new IPCC report. “The rate of temperature rise in the last half-century is the highest in 2,000 years,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said as the report was released. “Concentrations of carbon dioxide are at their highest in at least 2 million years. The climate time bomb is ticking.” The science is unequivocal: humans are causing a climate catastrophe, and our window to avoid irreversible damage is closing rapidly. Most importantly, people in poor nations, in the Global South, bear the brunt of climate disasters, but have contributed the least to global carbon emissions. This is the ongoing legacy of colonialism and resource extraction embedded in the lyrics of Azagaia.
“So many people within our countries, especially in Africa, are invisible, evoking pity when a deadly cyclone hits, forgotten the week after,” Dipti Bhatnagar, climate justice activist based in Mozambique, wrote in a piece eulogizing Azagaia. “As the crises deepen, people are going to get more and more incensed,” she said on the Democracy Now! news hour. “The youth are going to get more and more incensed. We need cultural icons like Azagaia. We need space. We need constructive ways for people to get involved, to be able to organize, to oppose the injustices that are happening. And the powerful know that.”
A new front to challenge entrenched power is being opened in the United States. Founded by author and climate activist Bill McKibben, Third Act seeks to inspire people 60 years and older to take action against climate change.
“Third Act recognizes that young people have been providing the climate leadership, young people and people from frontline communities, Indigenous communities,” McKibben said on Democracy Now! “What they lack sometimes is the structural power to force change at the pace that we need. Older people have structural power…There are 70 million Americans over the age of 60. That is a sleeping giant.”
This week, Third Act launched a National Day of Action to Stop Dirty Banks. Protests were held in at least 30 states, at major banks like Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo and Bank of America demanding they stop funding fossil fuel projects. “Here in D.C., for instance, the banks are going to be blockaded with people in rocking chairs,” McKibben explained. “Older people are sitting down today, but they’re also standing up in a way that they haven’t before.”
This latest IPCC report, Secretary General Guterres says, is “a how-to guide to defuse the climate time-bomb. It is a survival guide for humanity.” For a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels, it will take grassroots organizing and action. As Azagaia often declared, “POVO NO PODER! (Put the People in Power!)”
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