Powering the Green Future While Endangering the Present Through Transition Minerals
As the world shifts away from fossil fuels and moves toward net-zero emissions, central to this shift are green technologies that rely heavily on critical minerals such as bauxite, copper, lithium, and manganese, many of which are found in significant quantities across Africa.
However, the global race for these minerals has triggered widespread concerns about environmental justice and governance. Reports of environmental degradation, human rights violations, and governance challenges are increasingly common, raising the troubling possibility that the solution to one crisis, climate change, may be fuelling new and equally severe risks.
While the goal of decarbonisation is to protect the planet from worsening climate impacts, such as extreme weather, pollution, and biodiversity loss, its implementation, particularly in resource-rich developing regions, is producing troubling side effects. The rapid deployment of renewable energy infrastructure has, in some cases, intensified gender inequalities, aggravated social tensions, and exacerbated security and environmental challenges.
In its 2025 global analysis, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s Transition Minerals Tracker documented 156 allegations of abuse linked to the mining of eight minerals central to the energy transition: bauxite, cobalt, copper, iron ore, lithium, manganese, nickel, and zinc. The allegations include widespread violations of environmental standards, land and Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and labour protections. Cases recorded in the Tracker exhibit patterns of interrelated harms on local communities, while the labour force is often drawn from the same affected populations whose lives are disrupted by the impacts of the sector on their livelihoods, and on their health as a result of the pollution of the local ecosystem.
Allegations against mining companies involved in transition minerals have risen in recent years, driven by the growing demand for renewable energy technologies, which are heavily reliant on mineral resources.
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