“The need for secure, diversified and responsible sourcing of critical minerals is now even more urgent as ongoing conflicts, fires and floods destroy lives and habitats. Yet the bedrock of commitments to international cooperation on climate, trade and security alliances has been shaken in 2025”
Each country and the European Union have their own list of minerals or materials deemed ‘critical’ depending on their resources and reserves, mining and mineral processing capacity, and trade relations. Most jurisdictions distinguish between critical and strategic minerals, where strategic minerals are in high demand but at less risk of supply disruption than critical minerals. GLOBAL FRAMEWORKS FOR FAIR AND RESPONSIBLE MINERALS SOURCING Greater multilateral cooperation and coordination are needed more than ever to diversify and trace responsible mineral sourcing. The first step is not to allow any progress already made to stall if the United States withdraws support from vital initiatives or agreements. The UN Secretary General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals has made actionable recommendations that the G7 should endorse and implement beyond its members’ own borders and national interests. Principles of equity and ethical production, as well as those governing the trade of minerals should be maintained, as outlined for example, in the Minerals Security Partnership. Initiatives such as the Sustainable Critical Minerals Alliance should continue to reach beyond the G7
to other key mining economies, such as Australia. G20 members convened by South Africa this year bring together major producers of critical minerals – including those of the Global South, such as Indonesia, Brazil and India as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Zambia and other mining countries represented by the African Union. These countries need to leverage their own downstream processing and beneficiation potential from nickel, copper, cobalt, lithium, bauxite and other critical minerals. Canada is well placed as a global frontrunner in sustainable mining practices to share knowledge and critical minerals strategy within the G7 and across the wider G20 platforms in South Africa this year. To renew and extend the Five-Point Plan for Critical Minerals Security, G7 leaders should: 1. Forecast and analyse short- and medium-term shocks to critical minerals supply chains in the current geopolitical context, in continued collaboration with the International Energy Agency’s
controls on specific minerals, metals and materials could inform G7 discussions. Support diversified critical minerals supply chains and onshore mineral processing in partnership with G20 members and regional organisations, for example, between the European Union and African Union. Promote social and environmental safeguards to protect human rights and nature related to mining and minerals processing, in particular, the rights of Indigenous and land-connected peoples and their natural resources. Strengthen the governance of mining and mineral supply chains to prevent corruption and the erosion of the economic benefits of critical minerals extraction. Pledge financial support for the creation of the Global Mining Legacy Fund to remediate abandoned mines and improve mine closure environmental and social practices, as proposed by the UN Secretary General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals.
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Working Party on Critical Minerals. Rapid reviews and policy briefs on the implications of import tariffs or export
With growth slowing and families struggling to make ends meet, it is an appalling injustice when money ends up in the hands of criminals – money that could be spent on much-needed global growth and development” // KATHRYN STURMAN Kathryn Sturman is a professor and principal research fellow at the Sustainable Minerals Institute at the University of Queensland. She is an applied policy researcher interested in resource governance and the social impacts of mining. Her research focuses on social and governance risks of mining critical minerals for the energy transition.
103 globalgovernanceproject.org
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