Critical Omission: How Minerals Evaporated From final COP30 Text

When a draft text from the just transition negotiations during the first week of COP30 recognised the role of green minerals, it set off a wave of hope in the climate talks. The text highlighted the environmental and social risks associated with the supply chains of these minerals, especially during extraction and production.  

Negotiators had finally acknowledged the connection between just transition pathways and the integrity and protection of natural ecosystems.  

A week later, however, the ‘‘Global Mutirao’’ agreement would leave out any mention of the minerals, snuffing out the hope to address the concerns raised by many developing countries, and as a result, betraying Indigenous communities, natural ecosystems, and their just transition aspirations.    

From the onset, these negotiations were expected to drive a wedge between developing and developed nations, with battle lines drawn as the negotiations progressed. Whereas developing countries are pushing for a just energy transition and industrialisation on the back of green minerals, they reject all forms of exploitation synonymous with their extraction.  

In their demands, African civil society wanted the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP) to provide a framework for aligning climate action with equitable economic transformation, ‘‘including transition minerals and adopting the UN Panel on Critical Minerals within the COP30 outcome text.’’  

This would ensure that the clean energy shift ‘‘creates real value for producing countries, workers, and communities.’’ Africans argued that recognising minerals like lithium, cobalt, and chromite under the JTWP ‘‘would link decarbonisation to industrialisation, decent work, and technology access’’ essential for addressing inequality and enabling Africa to benefit fairly from global green value chains.  

In this piece, we revisit how political intrigues in the debate, interference by powerful lobby groups and self-interest watered down the deal and, effectively, left millions of poor people and nature at risk of continued exploitation by mining corporations. 

Usual suspects fossil fuel lobbyists had a field day at COP30. With more than 1600 hundred fossil fuel lobbyists – or one in 25 participants – present, the summit set the record for the heaviest ever raid by this group. The growing pervasive presence of lobbyists at the climate talks in recent years has sparked suspicions of corporate capture of the process. Indeed, the removal of reference to minerals is believed to have been influenced by the lobbyists who persuaded negotiators to ‘‘avoid strict regulations on resource extraction’’. 

Extraction versus mutual benefits and the ghost of incompatible interests between developed and developing nations hurt the prospects of a deal on green minerals. On the one hand, industrialised nations were keen on securing mineral supply chains for green technologies. Most developed countries import raw minerals, process them before exporting finished products. Cobalt is a case in point.  

While the Democratic Republic of Congo is the largest global exporter of cobalt ore, China processes approximately 80 percent of the world’s cobalt. In 2024 alone, China raked in $266 million from processed cobalt exports. Meanwhile, an artisanal miner in the DRC earns about $2 per day.  

On the other hand, developing countries under the African Group Negotiators (AGN) and the Group of 77 (G77+China) emphasised the need for local value addition, industrialisation, and economic diversification to benefit local communities where these minerals are extracted.  

Fearing the implications of the language on minerals, China reportedly blocked the text. 

Pressure over human rights of Indigenous People and local communities was always going to cause discomfort in the mining industry. Large mining companies are responsible for deforestation and wanton destruction of nature through their activities. To end this destruction, civil society groups pushed to have the JTWP outcome include explicit, non-negotiable safeguards such as human rights, worker rights and environmental protections. They also demanded Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) before extraction.  

It’s against this backdrop that any mention of minerals was going to put mining corporations at odds with communities and nature. This led to the safeguards being expunged from the final COP text.  

Enough with the exploitation was the rallying call by developing countries at COP30. While they are mineral-dense, many poor countries barely get the real value of their natural resources. For decades, community members involved in mining activities have been victims of labour exploitation, including child labour, even as mining companies make a killing from the stones.  

Global South countries, therefore, pushed for a deal that avoids extractive models where locals get a raw deal from mineral exports, as both society and nature are plundered. 

Lack of consensus in the end torpedoed the talks as negotiators could not reach agree on the language and scope of including minerals in the formal JTWP text. This saw all references to minerals being dropped in the outcome.  

Despite strong pushes for re-inclusion by the African Group (AGN) and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), the references to minerals disappeared from the final draft decision text released at COP30. The outcome was seen as a missed opportunity to address the critical challenges and opportunities associated with transition minerals in a fair and equitable manner.  

What They Said 

For Kudakwashe Manjonjo, the Just Transition Advisor at Power Shift Africa, removing minerals from the text was a missed opportunity and ‘‘a dark shadow’’. 

He notes: ‘‘There is no just energy transition if the minerals, miners and lands that are the bedrock of the transition are not part of the conversation. It all starts in the lands, in the mines that supply these minerals. It’s not possible to talk about manufacturing, renewable energy and infrastructure development without them,’’ he says.  

‘‘The Global South is providing the solutions for the Global North, and that must be recognized. We provided two solutions: just transition mechanisms, and clarity about what that just transition looks like,’’ Manjonjo adds, noting that Belem had an opportunity to ensure no one is left behind in the transition.  

Colombia’s former Minister for Environment and Sustainable Development, Susana Muhamad, says the omission stems from how rich countries view their poor counterparts: providers of minerals rather than partners in co-developing a just transition.  

‘‘[They] shine a light on business, but not on humans. Without addressing minerals, we risk another round of extractivism, exploitation, and human rights violations that benefit just a few,” she argues, adding that this approach betrays the ‘‘two pillars needed to stabilise the climate: phasing out fossil fuels and restoring the ecological capacity of the planet with people at the center.’’