A U.N.-led panel released a set of voluntary guardrails Wednesday to prevent environmental damage and human rights abuses in the global hunt for critical minerals like cobalt, nickel and graphite needed to meet climate goals.
The group, chaired by South Africa and the European Commission, offered guiding principles and recommended actions in its 35-page report to ensure resource-rich developing countries benefit from the extraction of materials needed to build renewable energy technology and electric vehicles.
The group was created in April to give those nations more say over how mineral supply chains are developed. It brings together industry representatives, international organizations and 25 countries — both buyers and suppliers of minerals — as well as global rivals like China and the U.S., which compete for access to those commodities.
“We established the panel in response to calls from developing countries, amid signs that the energy transition could reproduce and amplify inequalities of the past,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement that accompanied the report’s launch.
