When Clarissa Mwanza told me about her work mining zinc in central Zambia, she seemed anxious. Her husband, who worked alongside her, almost died last year during a mining accident. He injured his leg when the floor collapsed and spent a month in hospital. Other miners buried up to their necks were also seriously injured.
Mwanza told me she also worries about her seven-year-old daughter, who sometimes joins her in the mine, putting rocks into bags. The girl was diagnosed with lead poisoning last year, likely due to the mine’s toxic, lead-contaminated soil. Mwanza continues to explore zinc despite her fears. She has no other options.
Zinc is an essential metal used in the construction of wind turbines and is therefore necessary for the urgent phase-out of fossil fuels and the transition to zero-carbon renewable energy systems. Demand for zinc and other minerals needed for renewable energy – such as lithium, cobalt, manganese and nickel – is expected to rise sharply in the coming years. The protection of so-called critical minerals has become a political priority for industrialized countries and has given rise to a new type of bilateral and multilateral diplomacy around minerals, such as the Mineral Security Partnership.
In April, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres gave a moving speech on the role of minerals in the energy transition, urging world leaders: “As we reshape the way we power our societies and economies, we cannot replace a dirty, exploitative extractive industry and another dirty, exploitative extractive industry. The race to zero emissions cannot run roughshod over the poor.”
However, there is a great risk that this is exactly what will happen. Human Rights Watch has documented a wide range of human rights violations in mining, including the use of child labor, health-threatening chemical pollution, water shortages, and police violence.
The extraction and processing of transition minerals, in particular, is also characterized by abuse. Children perform dangerous work in cobalt mining; Indigenous peoples’ rights have been violated in lithium mining; manganese processing workers suffer manganese-related illnesses; and communities face severe pollution from nickel mining and smelting.
These violations of international human rights law undermine the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, including Goal 3 on health, Goal 6 on access to water and Goal 8 on decent work. They also play into the hands of those who oppose the energy transition.
Guterres’ speech inaugurated a new UN body, the Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, which consists of governments, international agencies, industry groups and some international non-governmental organizations. Its task is to develop “principles to safeguard environmental and social standards and embed justice in the energy transition”.
Guterres’ initiative comes at a crucial time, as many governments have committed to abandoning fossil fuels. The UN panel has a unique opportunity to help define lessons learned from the past and define what transformative change towards a decarbonized future could look like.
But for this to happen, governments and industry need to understand the problems of the past and recognize the damage that mining has caused to local communities. There are currently efforts to present mining as a contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals and to encourage its recognition as an “essential ingredient” in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Instead of ignoring the risks, the panel should listen to the voices of civil society and the community, push for industry to uphold fundamental principles, and ensure that the urgently needed fossil fuel phase-out and energy transition are fair, equitable and transformative .
It should make international standards on human and environmental rights the absolute basis and make it clear that they must be respected.
The panel should also urge governments and businesses to ensure the genuine participation of communities, civil society groups and trade unions in critical minerals decision-making and diplomacy.
There is also a need for greater transparency, including the disclosure of critical mineral memoranda of understanding between governments, mining revenues and actors in supply chains. The panel itself must disclose who funds its work, who makes the decisions and who are the writers of the final document.
The panel will define what broader political and legal reforms are needed to ensure that mineral extraction generates tangible benefits for local communities and contributes to significant improvements in economic and social rights in producing countries. It should push for progressive tax and fiscal policies and recommend reform of international investment and trade frameworks – such as ending the use of secret investment arbitration – that interfere with governments’ human rights and environmental obligations.
The panel is also expected to promote policies that reduce the global number of new mines. Such policies should require recycling and reuse to improve “circular” economy solutions and reduce energy use by high-emission actors, including through expanding public transport and improving energy efficiency, with a view to enabling equitable energy , efficient and sufficient for everyone.
Finally, the panel should suggest avenues for redress when communities discover that their rights are being violated by mining. The United Nations system does not currently have a body that systematically monitors and investigates violations of mining rights.
The Secretary-General and other senior UN officials should consult civil society groups on options for a credible international body that monitors and investigates human rights violations occurring in the context of mining for the energy transition.
A rapid phase-out of fossil fuels and a just transition are necessary, and there is no justification for delay. The UN panel should help achieve this by recognizing and addressing the serious harm that mining has caused and explaining what a truly just transition can look like.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
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