// 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 criti- cal minerals for the energy transition.
Republic of Congo, Ukraine and Russia. Mineral-rich countries struggle to drive their own development interests when up against great power rivalries to access their critical minerals. In the current global context, the G20 must reassert the importance of free trade, transparency and fairness in all sec- tors, including for minerals security. Despite US president Donald Trump’s absence at Johannesburg, the broad and diverse group of leaders meeting there have many opportunities for crit- ical minerals partnership. The G20 provides a forum for greater multilateral cooperation between the big industrial ‘buyers’ and smaller mining economies that produce lithium, copper, nickel, graphite, rare earths, and other critical and strategic minerals. Many are G20 countries of the Global South, such as Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa, and many are resource- rich but poor African countries. Saudi Arabia aims to develop critical minerals to wean its economy off oil dependence. These countries want to build their own mineral processing capacity for value addition and minerals beneficiation. The strategy of resource nationalism is intended to serve the global climate agenda as well as country-level Sustain- able Development Goals. PUTTING PEOPLE AND PLANET FIRST Besides global and national strate- gies, there are local concerns for human rights and environmental protection in the race for critical minerals. There is a risk that accelerated mineral explora- tion and permitting will encroach on land, biodiversity and livelihoods of vul- nerable communities, especially First Nations and land-connected peoples. Public finance, such as significant sub- sidies and grants for critical minerals projects around the world, increases
governance risks associated with the extractive industries. Corruption and bribery can occur at different stages of the natural resource governance deci- sion chain, especially at the approvals stage of exploration and mine licens- ing. In a T20 policy brief to the G20 Brazil last year, the Sustainable Miner- als Institute, the South African Institute of International Affairs, Nia Tero and the African Minerals Development Centre proposed charting a people-centred minerals strategy to safeguard indige- nous and land-connected communities in the global energy transition. To secure critical minerals supply chains and unite global support for a just energy transition, G20 leaders should: 1.
Endorse the draft Critical Min- erals Governance Framework proposed by South Africa’s Department of Minerals and Petroleum Resources; Promote social and environmen- tal safeguards to protect human rights and nature in and around mining and minerals process- ing, in particular, the rights of Indigenous and land- connected peoples and their natural resources; Strengthen the governance of mining and mineral processing grants, subsidies and invest- ments to prevent corruption and the erosion of economic benefits of critical minerals develop- ment; and Pledge financial support for the creation of the Global Mining Legacy Fund to remediate aban- doned mines and improve mine closure environmental and social practices, as proposed by the United Nations Secretary General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals.
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“In the current global context, the G20 must reassert the importance of free trade, transparency and fairness in all sectors, including for minerals security”
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103 globalgovernanceproject.org
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