{"id":875886,"date":"2025-10-06T23:14:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T04:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/06\/support-grows-for-cop30-just-transition-talks-to-address-critical-minerals\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T23:14:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T04:14:47","slug":"support-grows-for-cop30-just-transition-talks-to-address-critical-minerals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/06\/support-grows-for-cop30-just-transition-talks-to-address-critical-minerals\/","title":{"rendered":"Support grows for COP30 \u2018just transition\u2019 talks to address critical minerals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Developing countries and climate campaigners are pushing for governments to agree that the production of minerals crucial for tackling climate change should be included in the official definition of \u201cjust transition\u201d at the COP30 climate talks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The G77+China umbrella group of developing countries is calling for critical minerals and access to energy to fall within the scope of the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP) at the UN climate negotiations and any advice-sharing mechanism that may emerge from COP30 in Brazil in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see critical minerals as being one of the priorities that we have been trying to address when we look into the just energy transition,\u201d said Egyptian negotiator Khaled Hashem, the G77 group\u2019s lead on this issue, adding that mineral production presents \u201cchallenges and opportunities\u201d for developing countries.<\/p>\n

Raw materials like copper, cobalt, lithium and nickel are key to green technology like electric vehicle batteries and wind turbines, with large reserves found in developing countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chile and Indonesia.<\/p>\n

These countries say they want to maximise the benefits of producing minerals and metals for the clean economy \u2013 by creating local jobs with high wages, revenues for the government and domestic processing industries \u2013 while minimising potential downsides like environmental degradation caused by mining and abuses of workers\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n

\u2018Whole economy\u2019 approach<\/h2>\n

The concept of \u201cjust transition\u201d emerged from labour union movements and has traditionally focused mainly on ensuring that workers in polluting industries, including fossil fuel extraction and power production, and their communities are treated fairly as those jobs disappear.<\/p>\n

Hashem said this aspect is important. But, since the launch of the Just Transition Work Programme under the UN climate talks two years ago, developing countries have moved beyond this narrow concept to talk about broader transition issues such as critical minerals, energy access and energy poverty.<\/p>\n

Hashem said developing countries are united on this approach, adding that developed-country stances would <\/strong>become clearer at a dialogue taking place in the Ethiopian city of Addis Ababa during UN climate week in early September \u2013 but added that he didn\u2019t expect much resistance.<\/p>\n

Antonio Hill, an advisor with the Natural Resource Governance Institute, supports the push for COP30 to recognise critical minerals as a key element of the just transition.<\/p>\n

Dialogues between governments have also considered how to adapt to climate change in an equitable way, he said. \u201cSo we have already gone beyond the green jobs and the workforce, and we are now discussing broader just transitions that encompass the whole of an economy,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

In particular, the energy transition expert wants this theme to be connected to the COP28 agreement to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030 \u2013 as renewables growth is \u201cwhat\u2019s behind the rush on critical minerals at the moment\u201d.<\/p>\n

This demand, he said, is not particularly controversial, but there is a risk it could be used as leverage in other negotiations at COP30. \u201cI can imagine countries saying \u2018well, we\u2019re not going to support this unless\u2026\u2019 \u2013 fill in the blank,\u201d he said. Some nations might also argue that critical minerals should be discussed somewhere other than the climate talks, he warned.<\/p>\n

Hill said governments at COP30 should agree to support stronger global governance of transition minerals to ensure fair trade and address the social and environmental impacts of their extraction.<\/p>\n

Call for new mechanism at COP30<\/h2>\n

Campaigners and some governments are pushing for a decision at COP30 to set up a new just transition body to advise, coordinate and accelerate action on the issue, which would potentially be called the \u201cBel\u00e9m Action Mechanism\u201d.<\/p>\n

Anabella Rosemberg, senior advisor on just transition at Climate Action Network International, which represents hundreds of NGOs working on climate issues, said such a mechanism \u201ccan become an anchor of fairness in the global climate transition\u201d, turning the concept of just transition \u201cfrom rhetoric into a real architecture\u201d at COP30.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it is done soon and right, it will provide countries with the support and accountability needed to ensure that workers and communities are at the centre \u2013 and knock down the barriers countries face to change their economies,\u201d Rosemberg added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Developing countries and climate campaigners are pushing for governments to agree that the production of minerals crucial for tackling climate change should be included in the official definition of \u201cjust transition\u201d at the COP30 climate talks. The G77+China umbrella group of developing countries is calling for critical minerals and access to energy to fall within<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":875887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4032,2530],"tags":[10824,9407],"class_list":{"0":"post-875886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-grows","9":"tag-grows","10":"tag-support"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}